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him, "Well, someday we might be as beautiful as they say
Japan is." Because they had not had azaleas when I was a student
there, but they planted them on the campus and in the city and
it was a beautiful spring. Roy said, "Yes, the azaleas are
beautiful if only we did the same thing the Japanese did a thousand
years ago." I asked him what he was referring to and he mentioned
several native plants, some of which I knew, having been reared
in the rural areas and in the forests of Florida, that sort
of appealed to me. I said, "Well, why don't you develop them?"
He says, "We don't have the space." I said, "Sure, the university
has the property on the other side of the campus," the area where
the medical school is now. He said, "But they have other plans
for that." He said, "That's not the best place for it. This
area right back in here where so many nice houses are now, beyond
the president's home." The president's home wasn't there at
the time.
P: Of course not.
L: But all that area back in there, he said, "That's the place that
ought to be acquired by the university and made into a botanical
garden of Florida native trees and shrubs and plants." I said,
"Well, who owns it?" He said, "A man named Donahue," I believe
his'name was, "lives up in Michagan, has a winter home in Ocala."
I said, "What do you think it would take to acquire it?" He
said, "I don't know, he might give it to us." So he told me
that lawyer, Atkins, the father of Jimmy Atkins on the Florida
Supreme Court, represented Mr. Donahue. So I went down to see
Mr. Atkins and asked him about the possibility of acquiring
that property and how much it would take to acquire. I didn't
have any money myself but I thought maybe I might be able to
approach some people with money who would buy the land for the
university. He said, "Well, now, Mr. Donahue is coming down in
a month or two, and I'll let you know and you can talk to him."
So I went down and talked to Mr. Donahue when he came and he said,
"I'll give you forty, fifty, sixty acres of it for a botanical
garden." It appealed to him, the idea. He said, "If you would
agree to build a paved road down in there so people could drive
into it." Of course he was thinking about the rest of this
property, because his property reached all over the old Michigan
Road then.
So, I made an appointment with Dr. Tigert and with Roy by my side,
I went in to tell him that. "Just the property we need for a
golf course." I said, "But Dr. Tigert, he's offering it for a
botanical garden," and Dr. Tigert says, "We need that property
for a golf course. Let's go look at it." So it was about 11:30
at that time and the three of us went out and walked through it.