Kaku Sudo was born in Japan on January 26, 1861 to Tauidi Sudo and Yeuri Funita.  Before coming to the United States in 1891, she studied medicine in an American mission school in Yokohama.  She then studied at the Philadelphia Institute of Electro-Therapy and later graduated in 1899 from Laura Memorial Woman’s College in Cincinnati.

Topics: Osceola History, Women, St. Cloud, Florida, Women's History Month

 Born on January 5, 1873 in Jacksonville, Illinois; Emma was the only child of Charles W. Clark and Eleanor Shuler  The family moved to Jackson, Michigan, then to Chicago, Illinois where Emma was in charge of the Auditing Department of Fair’s Department Store for five years.  She was in charge of thirty-two clerical workers.  Later she worked for two years in the bookkeeping and auditing offices of Sears Roebuck and Company. 

Topics: Osceola History, Women, St. Cloud, Florida, Women's History Month

 

Topics: Osceola History, Women, Kissimmee, Women's History Month

Born on November 18, 1849 in Yorkshire, England to Joseph and Mary Bingham, Sarah immigrated to Illinois with her family in 1861.  With the nation unsettled due to the outbreak of war, they found farm life hard and moved to Iowa.  Sarah struggled to obtain an education and along with doing missionary work and some nursing, she eventually taught school.

Topics: Women, Osceola County History, Veteran, St. Cloud, Florida, Women's History Month

 Lawrence was born in Kenansville, Florida on November 8, 1891, to former Georgia slave Tom Silas and his wife Elizabeth, the sixth of thirteen children.  Because it was a rural area, Tom built a school and hired a teacher so his children could receive an education. 

Topics: Osceola History, Black History Month, Osceola County Historical Society

The only child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Williams, Minnie was born in Ocala on March 6, 1890.  Following the death of her father during a circus high wire act, Minnie moved to Kissimmee with her mother in 1903.  Minnie stopped attending school upon arriving in Kissimmee when a doctor said if she were “confined to school, she would go blind” due to an unknown condition she’d had since birth.  Along with taking care of the house, Minnie assisted her mother with the laundry of turpentine camp workers, using a scrub board and boiling water in a pot.

Topics: Black History Month, Dine with the Departed, Osceola County Historical Society

  Edward Adam Boehme (pronounced Bayme) was born in Dayton, Ohio on October 26, 1877; one of eight children.  German parents Franz Oskar and Louise Boehme may have instilled an early love for Christmas in him as evidenced by his generosity to the Florida community of St. Cloud.

After retiring as an agent for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, Edward and his third wife Anna arrived in St. Cloud in 1936.  With Anna’s help, he dedicated himself to bringing happiness at Christmas to children and shut-ins for the next seventeen years of his life.

Topics: History, St. Cloud, Holiday Cheer, Santa

When Union Veteran John H. DeGraw arrived in St. Cloud, Florida in the fall of 1909, little did he know that when his daughter Myrtle married Victor G. Mapes, three of John’s grandsons – Victor Loris Mapes, Dana Austin Mapes and Theodore Augustus Mapes would serve their country in the 1940s, as John did over seventy-five years earlier.

Topics: Veteran, St. Cloud, Florida

The youngest of nine children of Matthew and Sarah McMullen, born April 28, 1865; Charles Nathan grew up in Roane, West Virginia, working on the family farm.  He was only six months old when his father died.  At the age of thirteen, C.N. left home to make his own living.

Topics: Osceola County, Veteran

Prior to being one of the early settlers of St. Cloud, Florida, Levi Shambow was also a pioneer in the cities of Aurora, Illinois, Portland and Eugene, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and Butte, Montana.

Topics: Osceola County History, Veteran