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Running Away

An incredible incident occurred while I was writing this book. I had recently placed a Minorcan Web page on the Nassau County Genealogy Web site at the request of Lori Bragg. One of the larger families represented there was the Braddocks. My son in-law is Charles Braddock, he goes by "Chuck".

As a result of the Minorcan web site, I got an e-mail from a fellow named Jerry Braddock. He was distantly related to Chuck. He had seen the Minorcan web site and wanted me to know how much he appreciated it, since he never really knew much about them.

I found out from Chuck that Jerry Braddock was the author of a book on the exploits of several Braddock sea captains who sailed the coast in the 1800’s. Jerry lives in Charleston, S.C. In subsequent communications, he told me he lived as a young boy on Hood Landing Rd. with Professor Martin Hood. He was an orphan and along with four or five other boys were living with Mr. Hood as "foster children". They attended the public school across the road from St. Joseph’s. I told him that we lived on Hood Landing Rd for a number of years and knew the Hoods quite well.

I found out that Jerry was a couple of years younger than me and my younger brother, Jerry. So we were going to St. Joseph’s at the time he was going to the public school across the road. By then, however, we had moved to Mandarin, and went to and from school on the same bus that transported kids to the public school. Our home in Mandarin was about 5 miles from school.

Now, back to the present….I was talking to my brother, Jerry who now lives in Crown City, Ohio and was telling him about my communications with Jerry Braddock in Charleston, S.C. My brother then amazed me by saying, "I remember those boys, some of them ran away from school one afternoon and you and I heard about it during afternoon recess. We didn’t go back to class, but went in the woods to search for them."

"We found several, but not all of them and as a result, missed our bus and had to walk home". It was after dark and we were punished by Momma and again by our teachers the next day at school." "Don’t you remember that?…………." I told him I just didn’t remember the details and only had a vague memory of the boys.

After I hung up the phone talking to my brother, Jerry, I sent an e-mail to Jerry Braddock and told him what my brother had told me and asked if he remembered the incident. Following is the e-mail I received from him in response:

"Steve, I don’t believe this! There were five boys at Hoods at that time; Charles Wesley, Louis Ellison, Richard Smith, my brother Arnold and me. I was the youngest. We planned the escape several days….all of us were in on it. The plan was to ease into the woods between the school ground and Old St. Augustine Rd. during recess, then head toward Jacksonville. Only problem was Charles Wesley…always the snitch……chickened out and told on us after we got into the woods. They caught the other three before they got very far. To this day, I have gotten a lot of satisfaction from having gotten the furthest. When I realized some older guys were after me, I went into the woods off to the right some distance down the road toward Jacksonville. By the time I was a little ways into the woods, I heard the guys close behind me and hid in a clump of palmetto shrubs. The two boys went all around me and did not see me. Some time later, when I felt they were gone, I went through the woods a little further and came back out on the road to Jacksonville. Not too far up ahead on the opposite side of the road, I drew up close to some men who came out and started crossing the road toward me, calling for me to come to them. I headed for the woods again but they caught me. Mr. Hood gave us all four a good licking that evening. The next day, Mr. McCully, the principal, hauled us up before the whole school, had us bunk over, and whammed the fire out of us with a paddle that had holes drilled in it. I was ten. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT ALMOST 58 YEARS LATER, ONE OF THE GUYS I SAW FROM THE PALMETTO CLUMP REMEMBERS IT. I’VE TOLD THAT STORY TO MY FIVE KIDS A MILLION TIMESWHILE THEY WERE GROWING UP." "THANKS A MILLION, STEVE".

Steve Rogero

Jerry Braddock