BETWEEN THE LINES
Notes of a native son
It was the sun and the beach and the thought of another
Midwestern winter that brought Marilyn May and Katie
Duster to Fort Pierce in 1952. Perhaps more realistically, it
was a contract Katie had received to become the first speech
therapist in the St. Lucie County School District.
The two and another friend hitching a ride to Miami made
the trip in Katie’s Mercury convertible. Friends since fourth
grade class at Immaculate Conception School in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, Katie had just graduated from Marquette
University in Milwaukee and Marilyn was recovering from a
bout with polio.
Their decision to move to Florida, they said, was prompted
in part by the fact that most of the friends they had grown
188
up with had already married and
were having children. “We were
very adventurous for that age
and time of our lives,’’
Marilyn says.
But once in Florida, it didn’t
take long for the two to meet
their future husbands. Katie
would eventually marry Bobby
Enns, the intrepid newspaper
reporter who interviewed her
after hearing of the new teacher
in town, and Marilyn would
marry a serviceman stationed at
Patrick Air Force Base, James
“Bugsy’’ Dorrance, whom she
met one day at the old Lions Park
Beach in Fort Pierce.
Both left Fort Pierce after
PHOTO BY MARK DOLAN
that first year. Marilyn married Bugsy in Cedar Rapids and
then left for various places Bugsy was stationed before they
both settled back in Cedar Rapids. Katie, who was homesick,
returned to Cedar Rapids before a marriage proposal
brought her back to Fort Pierce and the school district a
year later.
Though living 1,500 miles apart, both continued to live
parallel lives. They had children – Katie eight and Marilyn
four – suffered the deaths of their husbands and experienced
the blessings of grandchildren.
Today, at 76, both continue to work part-time: Marilyn at
the Roto Rooter in Cedar Rapids and Katie at the St. Lucie
School District, which has nearly 50 speech therapists today.
Despite the years and distance, the two continue to spend
part of their winters together, with Marilyn returning to Fort
Pierce to visit a few weeks each year. They remain remarkably
unchanged, eternally blessed with the spirit of adventure
and sunny optimism that drove them to Florida 55
years ago.
New Contributors
Mark Dolan, who shot much of the photography for this
issue, is a former photojournalism
professor at Syracuse University
who for the last year has been traveling
in search of the “heart and art
of barbecue in America.’’ Dolan is a
former newspaper photographer
and worked at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Gainesville Sun,
Anchorage Times and Providence (R.I.) Journal before leaving
the business for a life of academia. Dolan’s barbecue
exploits can be followed at bbqpilgrim.com.
Charlie Huisking (“Dodger Blues’’) is a Florida native and
a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.
He spent more than 30 years as a feature
writer and columnist for the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune, where he focused on arts
and entertainment coverage. Still based in
Sarasota, Huisking now writes features and
travel articles for a variety of publications.
As as lifelong baseball fan, he was thrilled to
make his Indian River magazine debut with a story
on Dodgertown.
Michelle L. Moore, who did many of the page designs in
this issue, is a graphic artist and illustrator
with 10 years of experience in illustration and
design, art direction, artwork creation for
advertising, trade show display design and
photo retouching. She has been an admitted
“Mac addict” since 1989. A native Floridian,
she received her bachelor of arts in graphic
design from the University of Central Florida
and is a graduate of Port St. Lucie High School.
Susan Stans (“First Family’’) grew up as Susan Gladwin
Enns in her hometown of Fort Pierce. She is
a retired anthropology professor from
Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.
Stans received her Ph.D. in 1996 from the
University of Florida after doing her research
in the Brighton community of the Seminole
Tribe of Florida. For 20 months, she lived
with a tribal elder, Alice Snow, who collects
medicinal herbs for traditional Seminole medicine. Together,
they wrote “Healing Plants: The Medicine of the Florida
Seminole,’’ published in 2001. Stans lives in Atlanta, where
she is involved in the Atlanta History Center and the
Georgia Native Plant Society.
Julie Tarasovic (“Life on the Green’’) is a free-lance writer
and editor with extensive experience in the
magazine industry. After graduating from
the University of Vermont in 1988, and
spending a year living and studying in
Zurich, Switzerland, she held editing positions
at Jax Fax Travel Magazine in
Jacksonville and later Ski Magazine, then
based in Manhattan. In 2002, Tarasovic
founded and created Coastal Boating Magazine, a bi-monthly
boating lifestyle publication based in Vero Beach. She and
her husband, Tom, both Connecticut natives, are the parents
of a son and daughter and live in Vero Beach.
Eric Zelinski (see maps in this edition) is a student at
Ringling College of Art and Design in
Sarasota, where he is majoring in graphic
design and interactive communication. He
has a strong interest in advertising and packaging
design. He is the brother of twin sisters,
Melissa and Stephanie.
To read biographies of our other contributors,
visit IRMAzine.com and click on “About Us.”
Katie, right, and Marilyn, left,
visit the Fort Pierce beach
where Marilyn met her
husband 55 years ago.
/bbqpilgrim.com
/IRMAzine.com