Statues of women include activist, admiral, American icon
“Can you name a statue of a famous woman in Orlando?” I asked that question last fall, when the spotlight was on new sculptures of two historic Florida women, journalist Mabel Norris Reese and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. A bronze bust of Reese was unveiled in Mount Dora after a yearslong effort, and a monumental figure of Bethune was on exhibit in Daytona Beach before moving to Washington, D.C., to represent Florida in the nation’s Capitol. It’s slated to be installed this month.
Inspired by those sculptures, I sought to learn about other statues of real women in Central Florida. Readers sent tips, starting a path of discovery that led to a beloved booster of Kissimmee, a nurse who became an admiral, one of America’s first superstars and more.
Kissimmee activist
After community activist Bette Sprinkle died in 2004, a news report dubbed her “the First Lady of Osceola County,” and her statue looks right at home perched on a bench at 23 Broadway St. in Kissimmee, sporting a rolled-brim hat reminiscent of Princess Diana’s style.
The address now houses the Aviles Hair Studio and Spa, but for decades it was home to the interior-design business Sprinkle ran with her niece Lauren Zito. It was also the base from which Sprinkle took to the streets, beautifying the downtown area.
“She would drive down Main Street with her station wagon and a bucket
of water, and she would water the plants,” Joanie Hall, of Joanie’s Diner in downtown Kissimmee, said after Sprinkle’s death. She did much more, too: She served as president of the Downtown Business Association for 25 years and as a board member and later chairwoman of the Municipal Development Board. She also organized the downtown farmers market.
In 2006, the Broadway Street statue was originally unveiled in Toho Square, near Pleasant Street at Darlington Avenue, but in 2016, city officials announced it had to be moved to make way for development. And, so,
Bette Sprinkle came back home to the downtown she loved. Thanks to reader Pat Pribyl of St. Cloud for writing Flashback about her.
Library legacies
Behind the Leesburg Public Library, 100 E. Main St., sits a bronze image of the woman whose appearances with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the 1880s and 1890s probably made her “the most celebrated female performer in the world,” according to author Larry McMurtry.
She was Annie Oakley, and her legacy continued in 20th-century popular culture with the Irving
Berlin musical “Annie Get Your Gun,” featuring stars ranging from Ethel Merman to Reba McEntire.
Later in her life, Oakley spent winters at Leesburg’s Lake View Hotel with her husband, Frank Butler, as I learned from Rick Kilby’s fine article, “Little Sure Shot’s Snowbird Days” (see thehistorycenter.org/ annie).
The Leesburg statue of Oakley, by Texas sculptor John Bennett, also features her beloved companion, Dave the Wonder Dog. It was unveiled in 2007, in a garden behind the library. In front of the building, another work by Bennett depicts Alice Barrett
Reeves of Leesburg reading to her great-granddaughter. Reeves, who died in 2009 at the age of 100, attended the Lake County Training School, for many years Leesburg’s only school for Black pupils, and later taught there for more than two decades.
Pathbreaking admiral
In 2013, the University of Central Florida’s College of Nursing unveiled a bust of retired Rear Admiral Alene Duerk, the first woman to achieve flag rank in Navy history. Duerk retired to the Lake Mary area after a storied career that included World War II service on a hospital ship; she was on board when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In retirement, Duerk joined the board of the Visiting Nurse Association, which became the Visiting Nurse Foundation in 1997. The group offers endowed scholarships in her name to full-time undergraduate nursing students at UCF, writes her friend Grace Chewning, who succeeded Duerk on the foundation board.
Other Central Florida
statues of women include the figure of Marilyn Logsdon Mennello, co-founder of the Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, which her husband Michael commissioned after her death in 2006. The work of Windermere-based sculptor Loura Parks Dobbs, the statue stands at the entrance to the Cunningham gallery. Thanks to Elaine Henrich for her email about it.
Mary McLeod Bethune — educator, activist and adviser to U.S. presidents — remains the Central Florida woman most depicted in sculptures. An 8-foot-tall bronze version of the marble statue that will represent Florida at the U.S. Capitol is slated to be part of a new Bethune Pavilion in Daytona Beach. It will face west toward the Bethune-Cookman campus, where another inspiring figure of Bethune was placed in 2005, near the performing arts center.