Marlin Eller at age 16 is Broward school bus driver
Deerfield’s public school in the 1920s and 30s was located adjacent to the present day city hall, and is still there as a historic building. The grades went from first to eighth. Students wishing for further education had to go to Pompano High School seven miles south down Dixie Highway, (US No. 1, Federal Highway, did not exist yet).
However, Pompano High School was limited in the courses it offered. For instance, math courses in algebra and geometry were not offered at Pompano. Therefore students in North Broward County, aspiring to a higher education such as engineering, which required algebra and geometry courses in high school as a prerequisite for college, had to attend Ft. Lauderdale High School some 14 miles away.
Dad’s best friend, David Long, had already moved to Ft. Lauderdale when his father got a job as a manager at the Broward County jail. Therefore, he was already attending Ft. Lauderdale High School. Dad, however, was stuck with going to Pompano High School, which did not offer the courses he needed to be accepted at Georgia Tech, which he and David both aspired to attend.
Dad needed to attend Ft. Lauderdale High School to get the courses he needed, but Granddad Eller refused to approve him riding his motor scooter back and forth every day to Ft. Lauderdale. Thus dad was stuck with attending Pompano High School for 9th and 10th grades. However, as soon as dad reached his 16th birthday, he took and passed his driver’s license and immediately applied for a job as a school bus driver for the Broward County School Bus System.
Amazingly, he was hired and assigned a school bus to drive from Deerfield to Ft. Lauderdale, picking up students along the way. Thus dad attended and graduated from Ft. Lauderdale High School in 1933, by driving a Broward County School bus back and forth from Deerfield to Ft. Lauderdale every school day while only 16 and 17 years of age.
My dad had two girl friends at the time. One, Lorena Horton, age 16, lived just north of Pensacola, Florida, near the little town of Flomaton, Alabama, on her daddy’s cotton farm. One of seven children, she had been dad’s “girlfriend” since they started first grade together in 1922. Dad’s family when he was eight years old had moved to Deerfield, but nearly every summer his father, Hoyt, drove the family back up to Alabama to visit relatives and friends, including my maternal grandfather L. Allen Horton. Therefore, Marlin Eller and Lorena Horton had known each other since age six, and kept in touch after dad moved to Deerfield via summer visits and letter-writing.
But when dad started to attend Ft. Lauderdale High School he was smitten by another pretty girl by the name of Virginia Young. She and dad dated their junior year, and dad took her to the prom. But when he went up to Alabama that summer he and Lorena Horton decided suddenly to get married. (No! For those of you with dirty minds, she wasn’t pregnant, but later admitted to simply wanting to “check mate” Virginia Young. No one knew about it except Lorena’s older brother, Harvey, who encouraged them, made the appointment with the Justice of the Peace in Greenville, Alabama, and served as their best man. However, there arose a serious problem, because back in those days you were not allowed to attend a public high school if you were married. Therefore, they had to keep it a secret for a year, which they did. Only my Uncle Harvey Horton knew.
Virginia Young later on became the Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, and served about 20 years through much of the 60’s and 70’s. Fate set us next to each other at a political event many years ago and she confirmed with me that I was Marlin Eller’s son. After complimenting me as a look-alike to my dad, she shared how he “broke her heart” their senior year in high school when he did not “take” her to their senior prom. She went on to share that within minutes of their actual graduation ceremony at Fort Lauderdale High in 1934, when my dad, with his diploma in hand, rushed to her to apologize for not dating her their senior year, and explained that it was because he was married. She then shared with me that he had really smitten her by playing the guitar and singing to her on some of their dates.
David Eller

David Eller