In 1951, the Korean War was going on and Seoul, Korea, fell to the communist forces from the north. The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, limiting the number of terms a president may serve, was ratified. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for treason, having given the Soviet Union our secrets for building atomic bombs. The cost of a first-class stamp was $0.03. The NY Yankees defeated the NY Giants in the World Series 4-2. Color television was first introduced in the USA, and the Best Movies were The African Queen and A Streetcar Named Desire, and for most of the year, I was nine years-old.

My father always said that Deerfield and this northeast Broward County area started to grow because so many of the soldiers who were based at the Boca Raton Airfield during World War II liked the weather here, and eventually decided to come back to live permanently. I’m sure that was true in the big picture of things, but from my perspective as a nine-year-old boy, it was when the Williams Dairy arrived, located where Century Village is now, that Deerfield started to grow.

Mr. Williams moved his dairy here from Dade County in 1950-51. He had two sons, Mitchell, who was two years older than me, and Donald, who had the nickname “Peewee,” who was my same age. They were both very athletic, and could ride their own horses at their father’s dairy. Also two other boys, Jimmy Phillips and Jessie Beard, whose fathers worked on the dairy, were in our class, as well as Tommy Gannon, whose father was an electrician and mother was a nurse, had just arrived in town. Tommy and I became good friends as he lived only two blocks away. When summer came and our Baptist church had Vacation Bible School (VBS), he and I were both surprised and confused when his parents told him he could not go to our church for VBS. (An annual event in the summer where the kids learned stories from the Bible, and got lots of ice cream). His mother kindly explained to me that Tommy and their family were Catholics and even though they did not have their own church to go to in Deerfield yet, she didn’t want Tommy to get confused and therefore did not want him to go to VBS at our church. Tommy and I looked at each other in a somewhat confused manner, but quickly acquiesced to her instruction. When I asked my mother about it, she explained that this was normal, that it was good that Tommy’s parents were religious, and that Tommy and I could still be friends.

Meanwhile, Miss Hinson (my mother called her an old maid) was our teacher in the fourth grade at Deerfield Elementary School. She had previously replaced our third grade teacher, Miss Riggs, in the third grade. Miss Riggs only taught us for a few months, when our principal, Mrs. Henry “fired” her. I was later told that I was the one that had gotten Miss Riggs fired. I didn’t mean to. I only told my mother and father that Miss Riggs was a lot different than Mrs. Slover, our second grade teacher, or even our first grade teacher, Mrs. Hartman. Specifically, Miss Riggs did not have us say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, and she had us singing songs from a country called Russia, which she had said was the best country in the world. My mother later told me that Miss Riggs had been fired because she was a communist. My, how things have changed.

David Eller, Publisher