Luck of the Irish in Gulfport
March 15, 2021 by Amanda Hagood
Charles Daniels, William Daniels and Marion Daniels Warwick at Daniels Specialty Clover Company, circa 1983, the year their family sold the business to the Safkos. Photo courtesy of Florida Memory.
Earlier this year, Gulfport Historical Society welcomed a charming donation from a longtime Gulfport resident: a lucky clover keyring from Gulfport’s original “green” business, Daniels Clover Specialty Company.
Some say the four-leafed clover’s magic dates all the way back to Eden, when Eve snuck a shamrock out of Paradise to remember it by. Daniels Clover Specialty Company traveled nearly as far, originating in the Panama Canal Zone, where Charles T. Daniels worked as a telephone wire chief for the US government in the 1930s.
Deteriorating Massillon mural removed over safety concerns indeonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indeonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ladda Peterson, nearly 24 years
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A quarter-century of nights, of lunches taken after dark. Of waiting for plates in the beginning and scraping ink off the presses at the end. âI havenât painted my nails in, oh, 20-something years,â said Ladda Peterson, 54. Ink gets under the nails and bond solution ruins the paint. âIâm going to paint my nails every other day.â
Her parents fled from Laos during the Vietnam War and ended up in a refugee camp. Years later, Peterson followed family to Florida, where the weather recalled home. She needed health insurance for her and her daughter, even if that meant shifts that stretched into 3 or 4:30 a.m. She met her husband here. She watched the place grow, grow, grow, and shrink. âIâm proud. We had come so far,â she said. âThis is all I know.â
Updated Mar. 2
Warning: The descriptions in this story and a photograph of a public lynching are graphic and disturbing.
Six years ago, a crew replacing light poles on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street found an engraved metal plate. It was a few feet off the ground, blackened with graffiti and hidden behind a planter bursting with bird of paradise, almost invisible.
âAt this intersection, Nov. 12, 1914, John Evans a black laborer from Dunnellon was lynched,â it said, âcondemned by a secret council of 15 of St. Petersburgâs most influential citizens, he was then turned over to a mob of 1,500 white residents and murdered.â
Veteran journalist Tom Rawlins remained true to his craft mdjonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mdjonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.