Yesterday's world in a silver frame

On any given evening, those enjoying pub room at the Gibson Inn or the Roseate Spoonbill Lounge may notice a sprightly figure with dancing blue eyes, a halo of snowy hair and, often, dancing feet.

This is Voncile McLeod, the reigning queen of Apalachicola.

“They called me the queen because I’m so outgoing,” she said. “I dance with all of them, young and old. They keep a private table for me at the Spoonbill Lounge and the Gibson Inn. All the band players say ‘Here comes the queen’ when I walk in.”

Born Voncile Sangaree on March 4, 1918 in Apalachicola, she attended Chapman School, although her adventures have taken her away from time to time.

Her father, Rhonat, owned the downtown barbershop with his brother Veto. She said the shop was a wonderful place.

“Both men and women went there. There were lots of chairs and a radio and all the men would listen to the ball games,” Voncile said. “There was a shoeshine boy too.”

Even as a child, Voncile loved to dance. She remembers her stage debut at age 11 in 1929.

“I was in the biggest play they ever had in the Dixie. It was called “Cupid’s Up to Date.” It was a Broadway musical and I was picked out of the whole school to dance in it,” she said. “I wore white silk satin rompers and I was absolutely gorgeous. I sat on a big throne in the middle of the stage.”

Voncile was the fourth of five stairstep sisters born two years apart. She, Marguerite, Christine, Helena and Juanita, the youngest, were known as ”those beautiful Sangaree girls.”

Youngest was brother Lawrence, who still resides in Apalachicola.

Swept off her feet

Voncile caused quite a stir when she and her future husband, James Carol McLeod, ran away together in his father’s new Ford.

“Carol’s father was a lawyer and state legislator. Carol had a car and he was so handsome. He was very popular,” Voncile recalled. “The first time he asked me out, I could hardly believe he wanted to be with me. I hardly said a word during our first date.”

Her parents were not as thrilled as she was with Carol’s attentions. She was a 16-year-old high school girl and Carol was 18 and out of school. He was also a fast driver and ran with a light-hearted crowd.

The couple courted for a year. When the romance became serious, her mother packed Voncile and her sister, Juanita, off to Cedar Key for the summer to stay with an aunt.

Their whereabouts was kept secret but Carol learned where she was and waited until Election Day, when he was charged with using his father’s new car to carry voters to the polls. Instead, he set off for Cedar Key and, driving fast and furious, he swept Voncile away and headed back to Apalachicola. His hard driving fueled by young love took its toll on the new Ford.

In those days, cars had to be broken in gently. The car failed on the way home and Romeo and Juliet were stranded outside of Perry.

Nothing could keep the pair apart. Voncile married Carol the week after her high school graduation.

The young couple lived with Carol’s parents for the first two-and-a-half years of their married life. Their first child, Jimmy, was born in attorney R. Don McLeod’s stately 14-room Victorian with porches all around.

Carol enchanted his young wife with his musical ability.

“He could play the organ. He could pick up any instrument and play it. He could listen to any song on the radio and come home and play it,” she said. “He had a band called the Paradise Pals with Reva Cummins and George Snellgrove. They played at big dances all over town.”

Voncile’s grandnephew Rick Bloodworth remembers hearing Carol play the organ when he was a child. “We just loved to hear him play. He played wonderfully and I don’t believe he ever had a lesson,” Bloodworth said.

Six decades in the same house

The McLeod’s home was constructed next to Carol’s parents’ house. Carol did much of the work himself, aided by his best friend, Neel Hinckley.

“I’ve lived here 59 years and never changed a thing,” bragged Voncile, pointing out the living room carpet was installed in 1951.

Carol and Neel also built boats together, including the “Trouble,” a pleasure craft they shared. “They named her the Trouble because, everyday, when Carol got off work, he’d go to Neel’s workshop to work on her instead of coming home,” said Voncile.

Carol ran the Dixie Theatre for owner Alex Fortunas “seven days a week for nearly 20 years with rarely a day off.”

“I would go and sit with him while he ran the movie,” remembered Voncile. “We’d leave about 11 p.m. and go across the street to Robin’s Drug Store to get a big chocolate milkshake before we walked home.

“I wish you could have seen Apalachicola then. On Saturday night, everybody dressed up and went downtown. The stores would all stay open late. Down the block on the main drag was Rice Brothers’ Grocery, next to Norred’s Pool Room. Then there was Marguerite’s Beauty Shop, Chicken Robinson’s Grocery, Jimmy Russell’s Meat Market, Joe Spear Jewelry and, on the far corner, the first A & P Grocery stood where Tamara’s Café Floridita stands today.”

Carol later opened the town’s first radio repair shop in the space that now houses the Orvis store on Market Street. In later years, he captained the St. George Island ferry.

During the Second World War, Carol returned to the US on a medical discharge aboard the hospital ship Marigold.

Carol recuperated in Memphis and Voncile went to join him there. She stayed at the stately Peabody Hotel, famous for a daily parade of ducks that cross through the main lobby to a reflecting pond on the front grounds and roost on the roof.

“Freddie Buck Sawyer’s uncle, Mr. Duffy, managed the Peabody Hotel. He got me a room,” Voncile said. “I spent six months in Memphis. Most people were only allowed to spend the weekend. It cost $30 a week and that included maid service. I’d spend the day with Carol. Mr. Duffy came and got me about 4 p.m. I’d sit with him in the evenings, in the lobby.”

Voncile received a great deal of attention from the other hotel residents, most of them Army officers. Mr. Duffy was her defender and warned the young men that she was the wife of a wounded soldier.

After the war, Carol worked for Vitro Corporation on Cape San Blas, and since his job sent him around the country, the McLeod’s were out-of-state sometimes for months at a time. She especially liked El Paso, Texas where she and Carol crossed the border to Juarez every weekend.

When her son Donnie married Ana, a beautiful Brazilian girl, Voncile spent two weeks in Rio de Janeiro. “It was wonderful. It’s a different world,” she said.

After returning from Brazil, Voncile suffered a heart attack. In 1978 Carol died tragically young at age 61.

Voncile is still the life of the party. At her 90-year birthday party, she danced under a starry sky as friends and family looked on.

Both of her sons were high-ranking Navy officers. She now has five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

She remains a beloved member of the community and she says she is happy to be 92 years young.

“I’ve been practically everywhere in the world and there’s no place to come up to Apalachicola. People know you here and take care of you,” she said. “Carol used to sing “Honey We’re Back in Paradise” to me when we’d cross the bridge coming home.”

In a thank-you note to friends following her 88^th-biorthday celebration, she wrote, “It is said that if a person should have one true and faithful friend in a lifetime she should consider herself lucky. Then I must be the most profoundly lucky person in the world to have the many devoted and caring friends and family that I have,” she wrote. “What a beautiful and special evening, but the real celebration is within my heart where I hold each and every one of you.”