Monday, March 28, 2022

Women's History Month - Day 28

 

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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