LIVING HISTORY
Debra and Kathy say the extramarital relationship wasn’t
Tommy’s first and that Jo Ann endured Tommy’s relationships
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with other women, including the boy’s mother. The
girls say he never strayed far from his lady’s man image in
high school — he referred to himself a “creampuff for the
ladies’’ in his senior yearbook — and commonly flirted with
waitresses serving them.
“He never hid any of his indiscretions,’’ Kathy says. “Mother
truly loved him because she would never tell him no.
“She could have told him to hit the highway, but in the
1950s, ’60s and even ‘70s divorce was frowned upon, especially
for her,’’ Kathy says. “She didn’t want to start over
again. He had a way of making you feel that whatever he
said was gospel.’’
Observes Kent Mills, who grew up at Cow Creek: “Tommy
had some good ways about him, but he also had some bad
ways and he had some weaknesses as old as mankind.’’
Because Jo Ann’s father died when she was 8 and her
grandparents took custody of her, separating her from her
mother, Jo Ann had learned to endure almost anything.
Raised by her domineering grandmother, she had also
learned to stay silent and never publicly show her emotions.
Her grandfather, Frank, was the head of the household and
made all of the business decisions and Jo Ann continued
deferring to Tommy on all business matters.
PARENTAL ROLES
As parents go in the 1960s, Tommy and Jo Ann were strict.
Kathy remembers Jo Ann focusing on speech. “ ‘I don’t
give a darn. You will not say ain’t in this house,’’’ Kathy remembers.
“She was always correcting my English. ‘’
While Jo Ann was stressing manners and being a lady to
the girls, Tommy spent a lot of time talking to them about life,
sometimes incessantly.
“I used to beg my dad to beat me instead of talking to me
for 15 minutes,’’ Kathy says.
“We didn’t get too many I love you’s,” she adds. “There
just wasn’t a whole lot of affection.’’
Kathy says she began using drugs as an early teen and, at
15, secretly began dating a man 7 years older than she was.
She went to St. Edward’s School in Vero Beach in ninth grade
and Dan McCarty High School in 10th and 11th.
“I don’t know how I made A’s and B’s but I did,” she says.
“I did a lot of drugs and everybody I hung around with did. I
was not a good kid, but I didn’t go to jail or anything.’’
Kathy Sloan with Moses, a rescued deer that was a Cow Creek fixture for
more than a decade. The family also raised a wild hog and wild otter.
The old well, horse barn and truck barn at Cow Creek Ranch headquarters.
Jo Ann Sloan, shown here in 1965, was a passionate gardener.
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