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Obituary

Former city official dies at 104

Dan Stoutamire, one of the city's first bridge tenders, was a former City Council member.

By NOVA BEALL
Published January 31, 2007

Daniel L. "Dan" Stoutamire, a former Clearwater City Council member and hardware store owner and one of the city's first bridge tenders, died Sunday (Jan. 28, 2007) in Grand Haven, Mich. He was 104.

Mr. Stoutamire was a fixture in a city that grew up around him, but he remained modest and down-to-earth.

"I'm no mister, thank you," he would tell people who tried to address him formally. "I'm just plain Dan, born on a cold, frosty morning in Tallahassee."

That morning was March 3, 1902. He was the first of 10 children of Elizabeth and Mordecai Stoutamire. Later, he remembered milking cows and helping his grandfather cut timber during his childhood in North Florida. His ancestors had come to northern Florida from Charlotte, N.C., well before the Civil War.

Mr. Stoutamire arrived in Clearwater in 1920 to help his brother Carew run the toll booth on the now-long-gone wooden bridge from Seminole Street to Clearwater Beach.

On a typical Sunday, the brothers saw about 2,000 cars pass over the bridge, known as "the clickety-clack bridge" for the sounds the cars made as they crossed it.

There, he collected tolls and used a large metal key that swung the bridge open to allow boats to pass underneath.

Mr. Stoutamire once said that he wished he had done one thing differently back when he was a young bridge tender. When bridge owner and builder B.C. Skinner offered him and his brother some "swamp land," they just laughed.

Mistake.

"That land is now Island Estates!" Mr. Stoutamire said in 1994.

Bridge-tending was tedious work, so Mr. Stoutamire started a new career at Smith's Hardware, a job he kept for 14 years. He put his experience to work and opened his own business, Stoutamire Hardware, which he operated for 20 years. It was on N Fort Harrison Avenue.

In 1928, he married Winifred Grable. They lived in a large guesthouse with seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms. Two sons were born to the couple: John, who lives in Houston, and his younger brother, R. Grable, who became a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge and died at age 51 of brain cancer.

From 1941 to 1945, Mr. Stoutamire served as a Clearwater City Council member.

He also owned and managed several residential properties and worked at Clearwater Plumbing until the age of 92, when his eyesight began to fail.

After 59 years of marriage, Mrs. Stoutamire died in 1987.

Later, the widower began to court a friend from church, and he and Norma were married in 1992.

Even after he passed age 100, Mr. Stoutamire's energy was remarkable, said local businessman Jim Reese, who was related by marriage.

"He'd get out of the car and walk around without using a walker," Reese said. "He'd get along under his own steam."

Youngsters at family reunions would sit on Mr. Stoutamire's lap, staring at him in awe as they asked, "You're 104 years old?"

Age had interfered with Mr. Stoutamire's sight and hearing for some time, and his health had been declining since last year. So he and Norma recently moved to Grand Haven, where Mr. Stoutamire had been in a nursing home for the past few months.

Survivors include his wife, Norma, Grand Haven; his son, John, Houston; and his stepdaughter, Dawn Davis, Grand Haven.

Visitation will be from 10 to 11 a.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, 411 Turner Street, Clearwater, and services will follow at 11 a.m. Interment will be at 1:30 p.m. at Seminole Cemetery, 11250 50th Ave. N, St. Petersburg.

[Last modified January 31, 2007, 07:23:55]