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By Melody Jameson
mj@observernews.net
Elizabeth “Pooka” Bradley Sweat celebrated her 90th birthday in her favorite manner – with laughing, chattering, reminiscing people, most of them years younger, coming together from near and far, by the tens of dozens.
More than 140 of them - family members close by and distant, neighbors old and new, friends of long standing and recent acquaintance - assembled Saturday afternoon in and around Ruskin’s Southern Comfort B&B to help launch one of South Hillsborough’s best known and most outgoing citizens on her tenth decade.
They crowded around the pool, spilled through the doorways, lounged in the gazebo, relaxed under sun umbrellas and where they were, Pooka Sweat was there, too. In the process, they renewed relationships, recalled other times, grazed through buffet tables laden with finger foods, fresh fruits, local veggies, immense sheet cakes and sweet petit-fours. They caught up on news of other families, put away gallons of sweet tea, applauded Barbara Van Eycken’s Patsy Cline impersonation and, oh yes, revisited years gone by.
It was, the guest of honor proclaimed later, a fine party, made so by all those attending; “I saw people I haven’t seen for years,” she enthused happily. To which, daughter Joan Yeilding added with a chuckle: “you know how she is, she loves being around people.”
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| They may be separated by generations and distance, but the gap was quickly bridged when Elizabeth "Pooka" Sweat (right) and her niece, Libby Kent (left), from Cincinnati, Ohio, reunited at the 90th birthday celebration last week honoring the retired Balm postmistress. Kent traveled through the night from Ohio to Ruskin to join the observance attended by more than 140 well wishers assembled to launch Sweat on her 10th decade.
Melody Jameson Photos |
And it’s true. Describing herself, she will say seriously, “I love people and I like to work with them.” It’s an inborn trait that dates back to childhood in North Florida, that was evident at Wimauma High School where she met the late Grady Sweat, that marked her decades as post mistress of Balm.
Little Elizabeth Bradley came into this world on May 28, 1919, in Compass Lake, Florida, a small community in the panhandle. She was one of four surviving siblings. It was her mother, Saidee, who gave the new baby daughter the diminutive that would become a life-long nickname.
Her father, Grover, was a shop keeper and bookkeeper in the naval stores system, a network that brought basic commodities to Florida’s pioneering families. Grover’s livelihood kept the family on the move and little Pooka attended early grade school in Wimauma, about the same time that community got the municipal charter that’s never been enacted. The family soon moved on, but returned in time for a teenage Pooka to enter Wimauma High School.
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| Rayne Bergschneider (left) and her husband, Dan (right), were among the one hundred-plus guests who wouldn't have missed the opportunity to wish "Pooka" Sweat (center) many happy returns as she embarked on her 10th decade with a birthday party in Ruskin last week. In years past, the couple helped both the retired Balm post mistress and her late husband, Grady, with specific tasks. Dan, for example, assisted with spot-on evaluations of structural worthiness when a new property was acquired. "Pooka" and Grady Sweat, who met at Wimauma High School and married in the depth of the Great Depression, together built several agricultural businesses. |
It was not, however, the best of times. Logging in the surrounding forests had been big business, the abundant pine trees had yielded turpentine for a once-burgeoning industry, multi-faceted agriculture had gotten a foothold as Wimauma developed into a rail hub. To the north, Peru (pronounced Pea Rue), the little settlement on the south shore of the Alafia River, was hanging on, poised to become Riverview. Ruskin teetered on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay at the western end of a rutted dirt road through the wilderness. But, the economic collapse of 1929 had taken its toll; Roosevelt’s CCC work projects were what kept many men employed. Yet, it also was a time of new beginnings.
Looking back, Pooka Sweat recalled it was not love at first sight, but rather a gradual affection that drew her and Grady together. “I really didn’t like him much at first,” she said. In time, she changed her mind. They were married in 1934. She was 15 years old. It was the winter of the Great Depression.
The young couple settled in Balm, a few miles through the woods northeast of Wimauma, where several other Sweats already were sinking roots. They had little else but ambition to their names. Scraping together the sum of $50, they soon approached one of the Thomas family in Plant City, which then held large tracts in the Balm area, with an offer to buy, she recollected. The couple was told they could have a little acreage near what now is Sweat Loop in exchange for the timber on it. They took the deal.
From that beginning, Grady and Pooka Sweat built an enterprise that came to encompass cattle ranching, citrus groves, grove maintenance, land development and sales. They would welcome a daughter, Joan, and a son, Grady Jr., into the family. Grady would become a planning commissioner on the county level. Pooka would take over post master chores – and continue in that capacity for 33 years. They would lose their beloved son, struck down by cancer at the age of 38.
Pooka Sweat retired as the community’s official post mistress, unofficial counselor, keen observer and keeper of secrets in the mid-1980s. She and Grady commemorated their golden wedding anniversary in 1984 and she continued to help her husband with their business interests until his death in 2002. “I still have the first Christmas gift he gave me,” she noted softly this week, and she still will put in morning hours in the little office suite adjacent the post office.
So what of the future? “I’ve worked hard, stayed out of mischief and helped people,” she asserted firmly. “And, I‘ll continue to do that.” Then she added with an impish grin, “ If my health holds up, I’ll try to get into something.”
© 2009 Melody Jameson
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