Swamp Cabbage Festival Pioneer Family

The Pendry Family

Jimmy and MaryLouise

‘Ma and Pa’ Pendrey: A lifetime of love and work

Jimmie Porter Pendrey was born in 1909. His father, John Willis Pendrey was a dentist who came from Alabama with his wife, Lena Fitch Pendrey. The family settled in Miami and Jimmie worked construction, building the Tamiami Trail and also helping to build SR 80 to Clewiston the hard way - using just mules and a scoop.

He married Mary Louise Blount in LaBelle on Valentines Day 1930. They met when she was working at Dr. C.E. Weaver’s restaurant. On a dare, she asked him out – and that was the beginning of it all. Eventually, the couple would become the foundation of this year’s SCF Pioneer Family

Mary Louise was born in Tanner, a tiny settlement that used to be on CR 78 across from the old ostrich farm. Her father, Nathan Blount, was a pioneer in the citrus industry. The Blounts were the 1979 SCF Pioneer Family.

After Jimmie and Mary Louise were married, his road construction work ended and he was assigned to work in Jacksonville for 16 months. At the end of that time, they returned to LaBelle with baby daughter, Mattie Lena, where Mary Louise’s step-father, John R. Burnett, offered them a vacant home. Mr. Burnett was superintendent of Tyrrell Garden at Fort Denaud.

The couple accepted the offer and grubbed the land. Even two-year-old Mattie Lena remembers doing her part.

During the Depression, Jimmie and his step-father-in-law both worked construction with the Work Progress Administration (WPA). During the ‘30s, Jimmie worked as a mechanic for Blitz Wegman’s LaBelle Ford.

When The War came – World War II – Jimmie and Mary Louise already had five children. Like thousands of women across the country, Mary Louise cried when the letter from the War Department came, thinking her husband had been called up to active duty. Instead, he was classified 4F because of the children. He contributed to the war effort in a way that was just as valuable, however, becoming a mechanic at Riddle Field in Clewiston, where British pilots were trained. He had no background in aviation, but was given a crew to work under him and got the job done, taking a shuttle to the base every day with other workers.

After the war he opened his own mechanic shop in LaBelle, on Bridge Street between the old theater and the old Firehouse.

In 1974 the couple started farming on CR 78, raising chickens and some cattle. While Jimmie was mechanicking at the shop, Mary Louise would tend to the children and the chickens. When the children were all in school, she rode the school bus over to the mechanic shop where she helped her husband. At the end of the school day, she rode the bus back to their home with the children and continued to take care of the chickens. At one time they had over 5,000 laying hens and did the entire process themselves – raising the chicks, washing, candling and sorting the eggs. She sold eggs and friers to the B&B Grocery and the Trading Post in town. The children recall that their mother worked as hard – if not harder – than their father.

Of course, the children were expected to work also, but they always had a good time doing it and feel it taught them valuable lessons in life.

The Pendrey children have great memories of their parents, grandparents and of growing up in a less complicated world where hardships were taken in stride, as part of life – learning experiences intended to make you stronger.

They remember their dad telling them how he rode a bicycle from LaBelle all the way to Miami to pick up a used car. He had no other way to go and it was just something that had to be done.

Even working from early morning into the night, Jimmie still made time for civic duties such as serving as chief of the volunteer fire department. Son J.W. recalls how he and his father put out a fire at the Everett Hotel in 1952, when J.W. was just 16. The fire was out, he was sure, but the great old hotel ignited again later in the night – possibly under suspicious circumstances The glow could be seen all the way to the Pendrey place. Before long the hotel that had seen the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison was gone.

The children also grew up on stories of pioneer life. Their grandfather recalled fighting tick fever by killing deer. Mr. Burnett also explained how he floated royal palms down the river out of the Glades to Fort Myers and planted them along the roadway – an achievement usually ascribed to Thomas Edison. Mr. Burnett was the superintendent of Tyrrell Gardens with a number of horticultural achievements to his credit, including breeding the Burnett Croton at Tyrrell Gardens.

On the weekends Jimmie would take his old Model A he retrofitted as a truck to Miami to buy dairy calves for resale in LaBelle. He’d take one of the children along, who would sit in the back with the calves and a five gallon bucket. It was the children’s job to keep the animals from stepping on each other and getting hurt.

Their childhood included living with the yearly floods that plagued the area before the drier was dredged and the Caloosahatchee overflowed. Everyone who lived on the north side of the river kept a vehicle on the south side for emergency transportation. They recall how Ed Rennolds would ferry folks across the river during those times and how their mother wouldn’t go across with any of the children – only one went at a time, in case the boat capsized. This way any possible  losses would be minimized.

They happily ate lima beans and rice, goulash – a special concoction of hamburger, macaroni, canned tomatoes, onions, mayonnaise and cheese on bread. Although now they realize now the bread was probably to stretch the meal for so many mouths, they still say it’s the only way to eat goulash.

They have fond memories of Grandma’s Christmas cookies made with candy orange slices. Christmases always meant a brown paper bag filled with an orange, apple, nuts and hard candy if available under the tree for each of the children.

The recall simple pleasures – like Saturday nights in town to shop or go to a movie, skating or to a dance; like swimming in Pollywog Creek and the river and softball games; running around the house under the rain dripping off the roof and making your own toys, Sunday rides and visiting friends.

They remember how much their daddy enjoyed listening to Lynda Small Rider play piano after church on Sunday, then heading over to the old Courtview Restaurant for ice cream.

Like all the other hard-working pioneer folks in the area, the Pendreys never wasted anything that could be put to use. The children recall some strict rules. Wasting was unheard of and the children were taught to respect people and themselves. The family made do with what they had and shared what they could when someone else was in need. Life was good.

Jimmie died in 1996 at the age of 87. Mary Louise died in 2003 when she was 92 years old.

The children of Jimmie and Mary Louise - Mattie Lena Watkins, Helen Darlene Salmon; J.W Pendrey; Marva Willa (Boogie) Keer and Donald Ray Pendrey - are grateful for the upbringing their parents provided. As adults, they realize the hardships their parents went through to give them a good start in life – the struggle to survive that many of those times shared. Of course, their memories are full of the good times – the hard times aren’t forgotten but overshadowed by all the good things they grew up with.

Pictures and article courtesy of Patty Brant and the Caloosa Belle