ELIZABETH CODY MOORE
REMEMBERS "DADDY"
Hard times returned in '29 and he struggled along with everybody else. His health failed and he died of cancer in 1937 at 62, when Elizabeth was 27. Professionally trained, she worked at Cleveland's Public Library and married Edgar Arnold Moore in 1934. Baby Edgar was born in 1936, Philip in 1940 and Mark in '47. Her sister Sarah Isabel 148/275 also worked at the Public Library, but she was 10 years younger, so no overlap in employment.

Elizabeth begins with a remark to her neice, Margeret Diane (Thompson) Monahan 148/2761...

"Peg, you asked me to tell you what I remembered about Daddy, so here goes. This is sort of a biography, I think, because I keep remembering things about myself."
Private Arthur Philip Cody, 1898
Troop A, 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry.

"Daddy seemed to be sort of a socialite. He enjoyed going to parties and dancing. Mother met him at two or three dances when he wasn’t a particular gentlemen friend of hers. Aunt Grace’s friend, Ann Watley, was a friend of his at one time and they all hoped that they would get married. They thought that would make a great combination, but that didn’t work."
Belle Marie Davis
1885 - 1996
Arthur Philip Cody 148/27
Belle Marie (Davis) Cody & Baby
The 1917 Franklin Speed Sedan introduced "streamlined," lightweight body design.
- Syracuse Herald, Feb. 18.
"One year Daddy did go with us. We went in the car to Jacksonville, all of us. And, then we got on the boat and then they put the car on the boat and we went to Baltimore. And then, we got on the train - Mother, the maid and the kids and Daddy and Philip took the car and drove from there to Cleveland. That was the one trip that I remember that Daddy was with us. Most of the time he just didn’t travel with us. I guess it was just too much to have too many kids around."

"What I remember about life with Daddy in those days - we were very much in awe of him. We didn’t see too much of him. When the house was built, Mother and Daddy’s bedroom was at the end of one hall; that’s the house in Cleveland, the nursery was at the other end of the hall. That was a long way away. And, I can’t even remember a baby being in Mother and Daddy’s room. Mother just had to run around and take care of the babies. Daddy used to enjoy babies. He’d sing to them and bounce them on his knee. But I can remember seeing him hold a baby up and saying, this one’s wet. He couldn’t stand wet babies."

"Something else I remember about Daddy, we never ate our meals with Daddy. We had to eat in the breakfast room or in the kitchen because he couldn’t stand having kids acting up while he was eating. Good many years later, I remember one time, by that time I think there were six of us or maybe five, when Daddy was at the table with all of us and somebody began to giggle. Daddy took his plate and walked out to the kitchen and set down out there to eat. We were all just really scared. Made us realize that you had to be really good to eat at the same table with Daddy."

"I think Mother tried real hard to keep things peaceful, quiet and calm for Daddy because it was easier to do it that way. I remember seeing them get dressed up and go out places sometimes in the evening or sometimes they would go on a trip and leave us with the maid. So they enjoyed each other’s company. But just so many children were just a little bit more than Daddy was willing to handle. I think. I don’t ever remember his punishing us, except Philip. One day I remember Mother said something Philip had done and she said, “Your Father will have to take care of this.” Mostly if we got spanked, it was Mother that did the spanking but we were scared of Daddy anyway."

"By 1920, when Sarah was born there were five of us then and I know Mother said she felt that going back and forth twice a year with all those children was too much too handle. But, also, I think Daddy was beginning to realize that he couldn’t spend so much time away from his work, I don’t know. Anyway, for one reason and another, they decided to stay in Cleveland that year instead of going to Florida and oh, I know one problem was because there wasn’t any school."

"I hadn’t been going to school all this time. I would start school and as soon as I went to Florida I would bring my books and it wasn’t until the end of the year we’d come back and finish that year in school. So, Philip was getting old enough to go to school too so they didn’t think it was a good idea to keep us out of school that long. That was another reason we stayed in Cleveland that winter."

"Anyway it was certainly not a good year for any of us spending it in Cleveland. At the end of the summer a strange thing happened. Something I really haven’t figured out but anyway we all moved out to the farm and I don't think Daddy went with us. I think Daddy went to live with Uncle Harry. Now I believe that it was because the house had been foreclosed. He probably was having financial problems. We never heard about money at all. Money just - I didn’t think, you couldn’t have this because we can’t afford it. It wasn’t anything I ever heard in my childhood. But, I think, that was the situation."

Milk Truckers Notice
Dangerous for children, diphtheria's mortality rate was about 15% before wonder drugs.

Arthur and Marie came here, to Crooked Lake
where they had built this house in 1916.

"I went to Helen Early’s school for a year and the next year they said well they couldn’t afford for me to go to Helen Early’s school and I should go to Frostproof. Anyway, Helen Early said I was ready. for the 9th grade. Now at Frostproof High School they had four teachers. I don’t know how many kids for the whole high school and I thought - I was really snobbish, I thought I was just too good to be going to a Frostproof school, that I was better than they were."

The Old High School at Frostproof Florida.
Built in 1923, Old Frostproof High, where Daddy dropped Elizabeth off for school, is now City Hall.
"I remember she was there over Thanksgiving. She told us she had a turkey leg made out of nuts. I was impressed with that anyway. And, he just didn’t have anybody to get him up and he thought I was needed to stay home and take care of the younger children anyway, so that was the end of my going to Frostproof to high school. Because when Mother came home from the hospital with Peggy, she put her basket; I had the little tiny room, that had the ceiling came down over the room, you could hardly stand up in it. She put her basket in there. Plus I guess Daddy wasn't going to have a baby in his room anyway and she told me how to take care of the baby. She showed me all about everything."

"So, nobody was thinking about my going back to school."

Elizabeth sits with the younger children.

"I know Mother used to teach me, and Dr. Cord's wife tutored me in Latin and just some how or other they decided they could’ve afford to send me to Helen Early's school and everybody was unhappy about my going to Frostproof. Me and Daddy, we didn’t either of us care about that situation. So that was the end of my Frostproof schooling. And then, of course, the next year I went away to boarding school."

Students at the Cathedral School for Girls near Lake Eola are dressed in white and ready for a traditional maypole ceremony on May 1, 1920.
Students prepare to decorate the 1920 Maypole at the Cathedral School for Girls
in Lake Eola, near Orlando.
"At one time I remember the newspaper had a story about Daddy having done a million dollars worth of business that week. Of course, most of that business was on paper as its true with all the deals during the boom. One of the things Daddy worked on with Uncle Frank was getting the owners of property all around the little town of Crooked Lake to sell it to Mr. Babson. Neither Daddy nor Uncle Frank ever got any commission for selling the land to Mr. Babson because he felt they should be glad to have him in their area."

"About this time, they build the North wing for the house and Daddy built a much larger office and he had a decorator come and decorate his office and decorate the downstairs of our wing. We had a guestroom and special living room. I thing it was supposed to be Mother and Daddy’s living room. The big living room was supposed to be ours. I’m not sure just what the situation was. We also had a baby grand piano and we just had all kinds of things."

A 1924 Willys-Knight touring car Image of the Essex automobile.

"Oh yes, he was also superintendent of the Sunday school. Daddy always took us to Sunday school from the time I was just a little one I could remember every Sunday. And, later on when we didn’t have any Sunday school to go to, he had Sunday school in our house for us."

"It was also about this time that Daddy became interested in drilling for oil in West Frostproof. I remember going out there and seeing this rig and him saying, “this is where our bread and butter is going to be coming from.” Of course, they never found any oil there or any of the other places they drilled around Frostproof. But, there was a lot of excitement about it at one time."

"By 1928, the boom was pretty well over. Daddy’s business, as well as any real estate business in Florida, had just hit rock bottom. I know they couldn’t afford to send me to college for the second year, so I went up to Cleveland to live with the Gales and what went on from then, I really wasn’t at home enough to know."

Oil Rig at Frostproof, 1926. Taken by the Burgert Brothers Studio of Tampa, archived by the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services.
Oil Rig at Frostproof, 1926.
O-Jex Juice Extractor
"Of course, gradually Daddy became more of an invalid. I know he was in the hospital in Atlanta and he was also in the hospital at Bay Pines. Finally, of course, in 1937 he died of cancer."

"Daddy always had big idea(s) and enjoyed prosperity; of course, most people do. But, he especially seemed to feel the way things turned out was partly his fault and he was really very depressed for having a family he couldn’t support and I think he just partly just became too depressed to want to get along any further."
Fruitainer snack
A "new taste treat" - orange honey jelly and citrus marmalade in an edible "natural fruit shell!"

"He just felt he was a total failure and he became very difficult to live with. I am sure he was unhappy and I know he made everyone else around him unhappy. He was also very domineering at times. It seems as though he was trying to assert himself and convince himself the still had something to say. It was all very sad that that was the way his life turned out."

"I am sorry to end on such a negative note. If I think of anything more that might be of interest I’ll add it."

"But, I’m going to turn the tape over and on the other side I’m going to see what I can tell that I remember about Mother. Margie suggested that I do that." (She never completed one on her mother.)

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