I admit to being a little embarrassed when, as a 12-year-old boy, pictures of my 15-year-old sister, Linda, posed in a bathing suit, was the front page of the 1954 Chamber of Commerce brochure promoting Deerfield Beach. However, I was also kind of proud of her, even though I thought the bathing suit she had borrowed for the photo session from her good friend Shirley Jones in Pompano Beach was ugly. Mother wouldn’t allow her to wear a two piece.

The Chamber brochure was very successful, and helped Deerfield nearly triple its population to 9,573 people by the 1960 census. Most of that population increase, however, was brought about by one man, Bob Sullivan, (see Historical Article No. 19) who bought and developed the 500 acres called “The Cove” just east of Federal Highway all the way to the Intracoastal Waterway and from Hillsboro Boulevard south to Lighthouse Point. Although Deerfield had been incorporated as a city in 1925, it had grown slowly until Sullivan and a few other developers started “pushing it” in the mid 1950s. Meanwhile, Lighthouse Point was incorporated on June 13, 1956, when 107 people there voted to do so. Mr. R.E. Bateman was the first one there to buy any extensive acreage for development.

Meanwhile, my sister, Linda, mastered the piano as a young lady and went on to play and sing semi-professionally for a few years. She also attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she met her husband, Jim Boudet. They raised their five children in Vero Beach, where she still lives.