LIVING HISTORY
12
VERO AT 100
to go to the Wabasso School, which meant all three of the
tenders’ kids knew each other.
WABASSO AND VERO BEACH BRIDGES
Unlike the other bridge, the Vero and Wabasso ones had the
house on the property over the water. Whether it was one or
two stories, the children played inside the home under their
parents’ watchful eyes. They would not be allowed on the
bridge itself until they went with their parents or were old
enough to open the locks on the house door.
“We moved onto the hand-cranked Vero Beach drawbridge
when I was only two weeks old in 1938,” says Janice Wood
Sizemore. “We moved from the Vero Bridge to the Wabasso
Bridge in 1951, just as I was learning to help my father with
tending the gate. I always knew that we were different, but
we were just being a family. My father encouraged us to be
proud of it.”
COAST GUARD
In wartime, the German U-boats were found along the
and ocean. Their parents did not talk about it in front of little
Janet Walker, her older sister, Lena, and two young brothers,
Huey and Dewey. They did not want to worry the children,
so the children only talked when they were asleep or out
of earshot.
They did discuss it with the men of the U.S. Coast Guard
who were there almost every day, sometimes staying with
the Walkers, eating freshly cooked fish that Elizabeth “Lizzy”
Walker made or talking into the night. They spent time
watching the submarines and tracking their movements
so they could pass that information on to the Coast Guard. >>
Litzy Walker, shown with her husband, John, often cooked fish to feed the
U.S. Coast Guardsmen and U.S. Navy personnel who caught sight of German
sailors prowling along the Indian River.
The Winter Beach Bridge, before it burned down, had a home beside it. There was a playground on its east end, John’s Island.