Reader takes a look back at Orlando of long ago

A recent Flashback about Orlando’s Grand Avenue School, which closed in June, brought letters from readers including Alma Malone Hooks, 91, who remembers not only school days at Grand Avenue but many other Orlando landmarks during nine decades. “I was born in Lakeland on Jan. 21, 1926, My family moved from Dunnellon to Orlando in 1937. I lived off Michigan Avenue by the railroad tracks. I started attending Grand Avenue Elementary School in 1938 and finished the 6th grade there. I played in the harmonica band led by our principal, Mrs. Annie B. Lord, and Miss Pauline Hall, who was also my 6th-grade teacher.

“I also went to Cherokee Junior High and Orlando High School and have many wonderful memories of old Orlando. My favorite places include Orange Memorial Hospital [now Orlando Regional Medical Center], where my three children were born, and the old Coliseum on North Orange Avenue, where famous bands would play and where we sometimes went skating.

“I remember too all the “dime stores” downtown, such as Woolworth’s, Grant’s and McCrory’s, and Kress, where I worked. I remember Morrison’s Cafeteria, where we ate every Sunday after church. I remember the movie theaters — the Rialto, Roxy and Beacham, where my brother and I would go on Saturdays. I remember the Lamar Hotel, where my husband I spent our wedding night, Dec. 20, 1949. We got married in the old Delaney Street Baptist Church, where I am still an active member.

“My husband, Gerald S. Hooks, worked at the downtown post office. He passed away in 1976. I remember the Senator, the big cypress tree near Sanford that was set on fire in 2012. My husband proposed to me there. On Sundays, we would go to see the cows being milked at the T.G. Lee Dairy at Bumby Avenue and Robinson Street.

“My husband and I bought a house in the Lake Como area in 1949, and that house is where I still reside.”

Annie B. Lord, the principal Alma Hooks remembers at Grand Avenue Elementary, was one of a group of long-serving, legendary principals in the history of Central Florida’s public schools. Born in New York City, Lord moved to Orlando in 1921 and became Grand Avenue’s first principal in 1926; she led the school for 32 years, until 1958. According to the Sentinel’s Ed Hayes in 1977, Lord established the first elementary-school library in Florida and the first elementary-school science fair for Orange County. When Grand Avenue’s days as a school ended this year, a photo of Annie B. Lord still had a place of honor in its auditorium.

The 1926 school building was declared an Orlando Historic Landmark in 1995. City Commissioner Sam Ings and preservation advocates say they hope it can be repurposed and continue to serve the community.

For more on Grand Avenue, visit orlandomemory.info, the Orange County Library System’s communitybased, digital collection of local heritage.

On Nov. 11, Central Floridians have a great chance to hear the author of a major book about our area’s history when Gilbert King speaks in a free program at Rollins College’s Bush Auditorium at 8 p.m. King’s “Devil in the Grove” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013.

A richly detailed chronicle of racial injustice, it covers attorney Thurgood Marshall’s defense of four young black men in a saga that began in Groveland in 1949. King’s talk is the keynote for the 30th anniversary celebration of Rollins’ Master of Liberal Studies Program. Details: 407-646-1568 or visit rollins.edu/evening/events/mls-alumni.html/

Also on Nov. 11, the Osceola County Historical Society presents its 26th Annual Pioneer Day, featuring family-friendly activities, live music and more. Learn how early Floridians lived off the land long before electricity and air conditioning. It’s free from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Pioneer Village at Shingle Creek, 2491 Babb Road, Kissimmee. Details: 407-702-4355 or osceolahistory.org/