Legendary Locals of Fort Myers

"From the beginning, Fort Myers has had a lot of character -- well, make that characters plural.

And now, local historian Gerri Reaves' new book from Arcadia Publishing, "Legendary Locals of Fort Myers" brings to life the men and women who made their distinctive mark on the City of Palms.

From celebrities such as Thomas Edison and Deion Sanders, to common folk like nurse LaVeta Allen who ignored Jim Crow-era rules, the book, which will be released July 23, chronicles the lives of the people who made Fort Myers what it is.

Generously illustrated with historic black-and-white images, the book varies from most histories' formats by focusing on characters rather than chronology.

It illuminates members of the region's various communities -- not just politicians and businesspeople -- and it explores personalities both present and past, alive and dead. The late coach Wes Nott, who taught thousands of area kids to swim is featured, along with superstar athlete Deion Sanders. So is Emmy award-wining flute player Kat Epple as well as internationally acclaimed organist, the late Billy Nalle, who made music for more than 200 major network television shows.

"There's an old Fort Myers and a new Fort Myers," Reaves says. "And if you know one and not the other, how can you say you really know the place you live?"

Reaves, 61, a former English professor and the president of the nonprofit Southwest Florida Historical Society, has written two other books. She started researching this one early last year, finding her sources everywhere from online electronic archives to family trunks, using email as well as old-fashioned ink-and-paper letters.

"There were some great discoveries and also some great disappointments," Reaves said.

She grins as she recalls hunting for an image of Rabe Wilkinson, for whom the city's American Legion Post 38 is named.

"The American Legion didn't think they had a photo of him anywhere, but they let me into their storage room, so I took an allergy pill and started looking," she says. A few hours later, she emerged, triumphant. "The really nice thing about finding it is that they could share it with his family."

In terms of disappointments, there simply were no usable photos to be found for some of the book's subjects, such as Joseph Vivas -- one of the city's very first settlers who lived at first in the abandoned fort -- or Pink White, who was born a slave and helped start the first school for black children in Fort Myers.

Instead, Reaves used other significant images; his headstone, in Vivas' case, and in White's, a modern photo of the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Thompson Street -- the site of the 1888 school.

Did she have a favorite? Was there one person she'd particularly like to spend some time with?

Reaves smiles, shaking her head. "All of them. Really -- they all shaped this place.""

News Press, Amy Bennett Williams