Saluting Tarpon's settlers

Members of three families will be honored at the annual Historical Society Remembrance Tea.

By KATHERINE GAZELLA

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 14, 2001

TARPON SPRINGS -- Inside the gray metal file cabinets at the Tarpon Springs Historical Society are the buried treasures of some local families.

There are grandchildren's memories of old-time sponge boat captains, sepia-toned photographs of ladies in hats and old restaurant menus from a time when wine cost 60 cents a glass.

Almost every year since 1967, the Historical Society has honored three families who were pioneers in the city and has collected information about them in manila folders.

The three latest entries into the archives -- the Styles family, the Lerios/Gonatos family and the Brooks family -- will be honored at a remembrance tea this afternoon. Family members will speak about their ancestors, adding to the oral history of Tarpon Springs, and will file written histories about their families.

This year and in previous years, the families are from three groups.

"A Greek family, a Cracker family and an African-American family," said Phyllis Kolianos, director of the Historical Society. "I call them the cultural identities of Tarpon Springs."

"When the shooting started'

The Styles family, the "Cracker" family among this year's honorees, first came to Tarpon Springs in the late 1800s. Lily McCrady Styles and her son, Louis Styles, lived on Orange Street, and McCrady worked as a housekeeper for the Safford family.

At the time, the Saffords were prominent in Tarpon Springs. Anson P.K. Safford was one of the city's founding fathers and a former territorial governor of Arizona. His sister, Mary Jane Safford, was the first female doctor in Florida.

Dr. Safford took a shine to Louis Styles, said his daughter, Betty Styles Hammock.

"She spoiled my father," Hammock said.

She remembers stories her father, a carpenter and driver of a bus and private car, told about the city's untamed era.

"I don't know if you'd call it a wild town," she said. "But when the shooting started on the street, you'd get behind whatever you could."

She said she has enjoyed learning more about her family. The Historical Society turned up a photograph she had never seen of her grandmother with the Saffords.

"My grandmother died the month after I was born," she said. "I didn't know her at all, unfortunately."

She said she didn't always appreciate learning about her family's history the way she does now.

"My father told us a lot about the early days," she said. "But when you're young, you don't think to ask about the things that you care about later."

Symbol of our heritage'

The Lerios and Gonatos families were known for making sponge-diving helmets and captaining a sponge boat.

Anthony Lerios, who came to Tarpon Springs from the Greek island of Kalymnos in 1913, built engines and other parts of sponge boats.

"Everything that wasn't wood," said Nick Toth of Tarpon Springs, Lerios' grandson.

He also made helmets for sponge divers, a trade he taught Toth before his death in 1992 at age 100. Now Toth is one of the only people in the world who makes sponge-diving helmets by hand.

For Lerios, making helmets was just one aspect of his job, one that was no more important than anything else. Late in his life, he found it funny that diving helmets had become a valuable commodity, Toth said.

When Lerios sold helmets in the 1920s, they went for $50. Now, helmets with Lerios' name are sold to collectors for $10,000, Toth said.

For Lerios, "It was just another piece of equipment," Toth said. "Now, we look at it as a ready symbol of our heritage."

Today's tea also will honor Michael Gonatos, Toth's great-uncle by marriage and a prominent sponge boat captain, as well as other members of the Gonatos family.

"More than just the captain'

The Brooks family came to Tarpon Springs from South Florida after the massive hurricane of 1928. Three of Wilfred and Mary Louise Brooks' children died in the category 4 hurricane.

"They just got lost in the storm," said another son, Wilbert Brooks Sr., a retired truck driver who lives in Tarpon Springs. "They left right after that."

Wilfred Brooks, who died in 1960, captained a boat and worked as a sponge hooker, his son said. Unlike sponge divers, hookers stayed on the boat and used a long rod to grasp sponges.

His father also made and repaired sails, he said.

"He was more than just the captain of a boat," he said.

Coming together

Many of the Greek families honored by the Historical Society had their roots in the sponge diving industry. The other families had more varied backgrounds, from business owners to craftsmen to mayors.

Even though the groups are distinctive in some ways, they are also intertwined. Kolianos said many of the Greek, African-American and Cracker families share elements of a common history.

The Lerios and Brooks families, who were both involved in the sponge industry, are good examples.

They're not the only ones. At the Historical Society tea last year, Kolianos said, one family's ancestors ran a bakery. An ancestor of another family worked at the bakery, and the relatives of the third family shopped there.

"They all come together," Kolianos said.

- Staff writer Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4182 or gazella@sptimes.com.

If you go

The Historical Society's annual Remembrance Tea will be at 2 p.m. today at the Heritage Center in Tarpon Springs. The building is the former city library in Craig Park, near Spring Bayou. Admission is free.

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