PIONEER FAMILY GUARDIANS By "Sonny" Tomerlin - Sept. 1999

The sixth Homesteading pioneer family to arrive in Homestead, Florida soon included Ruth Mowry (+ Tomerlin) born among those settling in southernmost Florida. Forget twentieth century style living after five generations of farming and town development and think more like like Davey Crockett leading a few pioneers into a "goodly land ripe for the claiming" such as Tennessee was a couple hundred years ago. Seminole Indians were apt to hunt according to their customary patterns across lands claimed by the earliest settlers. Once, a kindly Indian told settlers about a panther as he pointed to the south and Royal Palm Hammock that had actually stalked him as prey a rare act and warned that people should be wary of entering that particular panther's hunting territory.

The town has little soil, but widespread limestone material is dug, crushed and shipped to other areas as beds for their roads. I'm still laughing about the Air Force Base scraping away this surface-material according to National regulations and replacing it with more of the same to make runways.

Civilization arrived along with most of my generation in the form of a road network surrounding Homestead. Since the average elevation of the town is about eleven feet above high tide and surrounding "glades" (lower by just a bit) are a foot or two of surface marl over a multi-county-wide limestone bedrock, road construction is simply a matter of a rock-digging machine creating a straight ditch a few feet wide & deep and the tailings shunted alongside the ditch or canal graded and leveled as a road.

Drainage ditches that stretched beyond our town, so I'm told, quickly became fishing Meccas, BUT tales accumulated of a very large 'gator' lurking just out of town. Even the ground shook, they said, when the bull 'gator' bellowed. (Only the male is vocal.) Urging action, they said, "We were terrified and became afraid to move about," so the men decided to protect their ladies and small ones and free them from such terror as would deny families the pleasure of nearby fishing trips.

A team of brave men was formed and they hunted down the alligator. He was killed and measured more than six ax handles in length.

BEWARE THE AGGRESSIVE PANTHER

Charlie Fales' and Alfred's families moved out of town and shared a home as if a duplex. (Grandma M. A. Mowry's Journal note for 7 Oct 1937.) Ruth saw to Alfred's obtaining a library card as soon as his age (8) met the requirement. Helen was in the first grade and yet we walked two miles (full miles as I later reviewed the route) to catch the bus to school. Now that's clearly out of town. In fact this area became the Homestead AFB. Once during a rainstorm our bus driver, the mother of our fourth grade teacher, turned toward our home from the regular route. Mrs. Dorsey is a very nice lady and we will be dry, I thought. Not so, she turned off our road

onto the last paved intersection and let us out. Still a half mile to get soaked.

There was a panther-type cat operating in this region. The male in particular 'owns and defends' a territory. That's not of itself a problem. Live & let live. You stay in your zone and we operate in our exclusive zone. A difficult problem became evident as one night we heard an awful caterwauling and scrambling over our rooftop. Our fathers said, "That panther chased our tomcat over the house and came much too close. No telling but what he might get hungry enough to attack our small children. We have to get rid of that big cat."

So they both got their acetylene headlights and Charlie's single-shot 22 and a box of long- rifle bullets and set out that same night to kill the panther, for they had seen his sign round about. All I know is that next morning they had killed a large cat and showed us kids a yellowish, spotted, incredibly skinny cat that stretched out over three paces from tip of tail to nose. Dad's paces were each three feet with great certainty.

Our next place was also subjected to panther proximity as Ruth Elsie was included in our family. [M. A. Mowry's Journal note: "10 Nov 1938 Ruth & Alfred moved out to Glade."] We never saw them, but heard a panther scream occasionally across Mowry Drive from our place about 2 miles toward Biscayne Bay east of Homestead town.

PROTECTED ALLIGATORS

Mid fifties saw an exploratory drillling to seek an oil well. This attempt was made just north of Homestead. No oil was forthcoming but they left an 'artesian' well of sulphur water, which became a pond and was then donated as a county maintained park. This has a nice entry road and parking lot and includes a high ground hammock for recreational uses.

At that time the American alligator was a protected species and interference was not allowed. Suits me if he's not bothering me, I'm certainly not going to bother him! I was sitting at 'our' picnic table when a seven-footer came strolling along headed my way. Not a problem but caution dictates to climb up onto the tabletop and note as possible step-two the banyan tree limb of

good size within easy leaping distance. Gator, mind your business and I will do my own things.

Betty & I were there with our two preschool kids, 'Mona' and Gretchen, enjoying a picnic and swim within park rules. There was a rope threaded through numerous balsa flotation doughnuts across the recreational pond, partitioning the pond's swimming area in halves. The rule said thatthe alligators swim on either side and the people swim only on the west half, permitting sanctuary for the alligator. A necessary live and let live policy based on understanding.

If you actually know what you are doing you would also include acquainting yourself with your neighborhood ecosystem. This speaks to developing a full and certain knowledge of human aggression compared with wilderness - patterned behavior. Understanding animal's needs and lifestyles can prevent needless anxiety and result in mutually protective habitat!