Frontierswomen
of Central Florida
Remembering
Miss Gertrude Thorne
A
Women’s History Month Tribute
By
Richard Lee Cronin, CroninBooks.com
28
March 2022
Day 28
CitrusLAND is observing Women’s History Month by
honoring extraordinary Central Florida frontierswomen. And as we celebrate
Women’s History Month throughout March, we are also featuring each day a
History Museum, listing their days and hours of operation.
See
also our featured History Museum in this Post
Lena #Tester Richardson
of Mount Dora
Lena (Tester) Richardson,
a Registered Nurse, founded Mount Dora Hospital with her husband, and continued
managing the hospital long after his death in 1944.
“Mount Dora Hospital on
Fourth Avenue,” said Mount Dora Topic of May 18, 1936, “which has now
been established for nearly seven years, is now an incorporated institution.
Dr. Gerald A. Richardson, who has successfully managed the hospital during this
time is the President of the corporation; Lena T. Richardson, R. N., is
Vice-President. Plans are now in the making for alterations which will make the
institution a 40-room hospital.”
By 1937, Mount Dora Hospital
had a total of 13 rooms in a “fire-proof building,” a later article by Mount
Dora Topic reported, adding, “many of Mount Dora’s most prominent babies
have been born in this institution.”
Contractor Lewis J.
Drawdy was hired in 1938 to expand the hospital to 40 rooms, adding to the
front as well as a second floor. By 1940, neighbor Emma J. (Little) Tallant
(see prior Post) joined the hospital as a Nurse.
Mount Dora Hospital (1937) Dr.
Gerald & Nurse Lena (Tester) Richardson
Dr. Gerald A. Richardson,
born April 30, 1891, at Brookly, New York, died March 23, 1944. His 1929 arrival
in Mount Dora had been proved a blessing in disguise for the community, for the
much-loved Dr. Callahan had died suddenly in an auto accident. Arrival of the
Richardson’s not only helped fill the physician vacancy, but a hospital also opened
the same year, offering both a quality surgical center and maternity ward for
Mount Dorans.
Dr. Richardson had
married Lena (Tester), of Patterson, New Jersey, in 1917. A Registered Nurse, she
and her husband lived at the hospital, and she kept the hospital open after her
husband’s death. The 1960 Mount Dora directory listed Mount Dora Hospital, 142
E. 4th Fourth Avenue, Mrs. Lena T. Richardson, Nurse.
Nurse Lena (Tester)
Richardson died at her Fourth Avenue residence on 14 September 1970. She was 84
years young at the time of her death. Nurse Emma Jane (Little) Tallant died
four months later, 19 January 1971, at her home around the corner at Third
Avenue and Donnelly Street. Emma (Little) Tallant was 81 years young.
The curious might wonder
if Lena and Emma ever met for lunch at Garden Gate Restaurant, a popular dining
establishment on Alexander Street, across from the railway depot. Popular during
the 1960s and 1970s, the restaurant closed in the late 70s. Years later
however, the Garden Gate Tea Room was re-opened at 142 E. 4th Avenue,
the one-time location of Mount Dora Hospital.
[Further reading: Mount Dora. The Lure. The Founding,
The Founders., by Richard Lee Cronin.]
Gertrude #Thorne
of Mount Dora
A lone grave marker in
Mount Dora’s Pine Forest Cemetery says the woman buried beneath it was Gertrude
Thorne. But neither a year of birth nor death is given, only the lady’s name. And
in far off Toronto, Canada, a detailed family tree lists seven of eight
children born to Richard and Grace (Edgar) Thorne. The eldest child however,
Grace C. Thorne, gives only a year of birth as 1865.
Founder of one of Mount
Dora’s three most beloved hotels of old, it is time to fill in the blanks on
the life of one amazing Central Florida frontierswoman – Miss Gertrude Thorne.
“She was nursing in Brooksville, Ontario,” reported
Mount Dora Topic in a June 19, 1947, article, “miles from her hometown
of Thornhill, named after her grandfather, where she was born in 1865.” English
merchant Benjamin Thorne (1794-1848), Gertrude’s grandfather, was in fact the
founder of the village of Thornhill, Canada. “But she had a name to make for
herself in the Mount Dora business world,” said that Topic article, and
there is little doubt now that Gertrude’s grandfather would be very proud of
the notable accomplishments his granddaughter made on her own, in the faraway
village of Mount Dora, Florida.
View of Lake Dora from Miss Thorne’s
Villa Dora Hotel
Gertrude Thorne first
came to Mount Dora as the personal nurse of Zelle (Adams) Oviett in 1905. “Mrs.
Oviatt stayed here,” reported Mount Dora Topic, “with her parents, which
is directly back of the site of what is now Villa Dora.” Gertrude relocated
permanently to Mount Dora in 1910, and she purchased an existing residence
which she converted, in 1914, into the Hotel Villa Dora.
The home of Zelle (Adams)
Oviett in 1905 was one and the same as the parcel acquired in March 1882 by
Frank Adams of Akron, Ohio. Frank was Zelle’s father, and as explained in
Chapter 4 of my book, Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding. The Founders.,
he purchased Block 44, one of the earliest lot sales on “Mrs. Annie E.
Donnelly’s homestead.
In 1968, long after
Gertrude Thorne had sold Hotel Villa Dora, yet another article in the October
24th issue of Mount Dora Topic explained that Miss Nan Thorne
increased the building size, making it into “a hotel with accommodations for
about 45 guests. Particularly admired about the Villa Dora were the “beautiful
proportions of the lounge, wide, with low-ceiling, and gracious. Miss Thorne
insisted on a cottage supported with long steel beams, the first ever built in
this area. Yet the workmen did such a fine job that the building settled only
slightly. She also insisted on a large picture window at the end of the lounge
overlooking the beautiful view of Lake Dora. In 1910, this also was an unusual
innovation.”
Gertrude Thorne never
married. Her success was entirely her own doing. She was an active member of
the King’s Daughters, a Mount Dora group that did much for needy families
during the Great Depression of the 1930s. She had been an active member as well
of the Woman’s Club and Mount Dora Yacht Club.
“Gertrude Thorne, one of
Mount Dora’s early residents”, reported the Topic of September 17, 1953,
“celebrated her 90th birthday at her home on Fourth Avenue. Illness
has prevented her from being out for some weeks.” Within a month after turning
90, Miss Thorne died at her residence.
[Further reading: Mount Dora. The Lure. The
Founding, The Founders., by Richard Lee Cronin.]
Ozella #Topp Champney
of Apopka
Ozella (Topp) and
husband John Tunno Champneys arrived in Central Florida just as the farming of
citrus was being introduced to inland Orange County in the 1870s. Prior to
their arrival, citrus groves were located on homesteads lining the shoreline of
the St. Johns River. But by the 1870s, smaller steamers were traversing the
Wekiva River to Clay Springs (now Wekiwa State Park), and so the Champneys selected
a homestead and planted citrus trees in the vicinity of Apopka.
John & Ozella Champneys
expanded the 1850s village of Apopka considerably in 1885, so that today, many Apopkan
landowners will find their land as part of “Champneys Add to Apopka.” Three
corners of the busy intersection of US 441 and Park Avenue are part of the
Champneys expansion of Apopka.
John Tunno Champneys, a
Civil War Ordinance Officer for the Confederacy, was also a Civil Engineer. He
married Ozella K. Topp of Lowndes County, Mississippi in April of 1864.
John died in 1891, and Widow Ozella (Topp) Champney, along with John Tunno,
Jr., continued the family’s civic and religious leadership in Apopka until her
death April 3, 1917.
Follow
Author & Historian Richard Lee Cronin
https://www.amazon.com/author/richardcronin
Our
History Museum of the Day
Tavares
History Museum
Located
in the Tavares Union Depot Replica
Ruby
Street at St. Clair-Abrams Avenue
Open 10 AM to 2 PM Tuesday, Thursday & Friday
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