S: No, I'm the only one left now. When the University was established here
 in 1905, removed back to Gainesville. He sold out his interest in the
 wholesale business in Jacksonville and moved back largely, I think, because
 the University came here that he thought it was a better place to raise a
 family than Jacksonville.

M: Where did he open his business when he came back to Gainesville?

S: He was in the real estate business at that time. When he went out of the
 grocery business, he was in the real estate business. He built rooming
 houses, which was a predecessor of what are now apartments. In those days,
 instead of everybody having apartments, they would just have a room. He
 would build this rooming house and rent it out to the operator.

 Also, during this time, he had an ice manufacturing business, the Diamond
 Ice Company, with Mr. R.B. Livingston. He had Gainesville's first ice
 manufacturing company. He and Mr. Livingston were partners, and Mr. Living-
 ston ran the ice business. Then he built a stone-ground meal mill. They
 were big stones about three feet in diameter, one ground on top of the other
 one. It made what they called water-ground meal, or stone-ground meal. The
 name of it was Sweetwater Mills. Over a period of time, the Diamond Ice
 Company burned down and then the Sweetwater Mills eventually burned.

M: Do you recall about what time period this was, that either one of these
 burned down?

S: I'd say it was some time in the '20s. From then on he just continued in
 the real estate.

M: Did he ever go back into the grocery business here in Gainesville?

S: Yes.' The Sweetwater Mills, after it burned, he continued it as a grain
 business. Remember, this was the horse and buggy days. We would get in
 maybe two or three carloads of hay a week, a car or two of horse feed and
 dairy feed, chicken feed, and also meal and grits and flour and all sorts
 of grain products. And 75 percent of the grocery business in those days
 was in 100 pound bags, in bulk. The merchant would buy the 100 pound bag
 and weigh out his retail sales in five and ten pound packages, in little
 brown paper bags.

M: While your father was in these various businesses, you were going to Gaines-
 ville High, and Professor Buchholz was there. Then you went to the University
 and, as you said, you graduated in 1920. Then what? Did you get involved
 in your father's businesses?

S: Later on. While I was going to school in the spring of 1918 the war was going
 on, and I had just entered what they called the advanced ROTC. I was called
 directly from ROTC at the University to officer's training camp in Plattsburg,
 New York. I was commissioned a second lieutenant and then was sent to Charlottes-
 ville, Virginia, for duty. That was in about October. Well, then the war was
 over by November so I didn't see much service, except that I was actually
 enlisted in the service during that period.


M: When did you come back to Gainesville?