MILT THOMAS

The 14th annual Pioneer Dinner was held Saturday night, May 11, at the Heritage Center in historic downtown Vero Beach. This year’s honoree was the Kennedy family, citrus pioneers who first came to modern day Indian River County in 1895.

The Kennedy family was well represented at the dinner event, featuring a PowerPoint presentation of family history narrated by siblings, Ken and Sue Kennedy Holbrook . The program began with Becky Loar singing some favorite Kennedy family hits of the Big Band era, when the Heritage Center itself was, as she commented, “The heartbeat of the city.”

Although the evening began with a torrential rainstorm, everyone made it to the sold out event, which was presented by Vero Heritage Inc., with the Schumann Family as presenting sponsor.

The Kennedy family roots in what would become Indian River County started with the arrival of Robert Ayers and his 15 year-old son, Frank, from Virginia in 1895.  As an adult, Frank sold produce, but he is probably best known as the person who discovered the Vero Man fossils while walking alongside a canal in 1913. Ayers’ sister, Theodocia, married Purnell Houghton Chesser and their daughter, Carrie, would marry John Alexander Kennedy. Kennedy came to the area in 1909 from Gainesville and planted one of the first grapefruit groves on 40 acres they owned at the corner of what is now Indian River Boulevard and 45th Street. To make ends meet in this pioneer community, he was also the new railroad’s  Gifford station manager  and married Carrie Chesser in 1912.

Johnny Kennedy died in 1929 at age 47, just as the Great Depression began. His son, Thomas, became man of the house at age 15. He quit school to support the family, working in citrus at Deerfield Groves and fishing to have enough food. His brother, Purnell, graduated from Vero Beach High School in 1940, served in the military, and married Nannie Lou Reed in 1942. Thomas married Clyde Hamrick of Wabasso in 1945. Together with Uncle Frank Ayers, they built a palmetto shack on U.S. 1 north to sell fruit. Tom grew it and Purnell sold it. According to Purnell’s  daughter, Sue Holbrook,  “He would greet every car that stopped by, slicing fruit as he walked up to them so the juice ran down his arm and handed it to them.”

In 1949, the Kennedys purchased land on South U.S. 1 and built a more permanent fruit stand. Their business continued to grow, adding a direct mail gift fruit business and surviving a fire in 1966 that gutted the retail building. The hard working Kennedys continued to sell fruit from a makeshift shelter as the store was being rebuilt.

Sue’s brother, Ken, graduated from UF in 1973 and took over running the operation. They sold their retail store and mail order business to Hale Groves to concentrate on the production and wholesale side of the business.  Today the Kennedys farm about 6,000 acres of citrus and pack around 1.2 million cartons of fruit per year.

Every year, Vero Heritage Inc. honors a pioneer family responsible for our community’s growth and success. Previous honorees include Sextons, Schumanns, Michaels, MacWilliams, Graves and last year, the Loy-Guy families. Vero Heritage Inc.  is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the living history of Vero Beach and Indian River County. All profits from Vero Heritage events go towards preservation and maintenance of the Heritage Center and Citrus Museum. The Heritage Center was built in 1935 as the original Community Building and is listed on  the National Register of Historic Places.

For more information on becoming a member of Vero Heritage or volunteering at events, contact Rebecca Rickey, executive director, at 772-770-2263 or visit the website, http://www.veroheritage.org.