Long Time Resident Profile Series
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Long-time Resident Profile Series
Name: Cathy Campbell and her son, Ian Campbell.
Age: Cathy is 50 years old. Ian is 13 ½ years old.
Status: Divorced
Location: Laura Street
Occupation: Cathy is an Accountant. Ian is a student at The Greenwood School.
Fun Fact: Ian’s cousin, Mike Campbell, is the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Which means that, when Ian attends a concert, he gets to go backstage and hang with the band.
Q: What brought you to Springfield ?
A: I moved to Jacksonville in 1985, from the Florida Panhandle. I was raised on the beaches of Panama City, and then went off to school at Florida State in Tallahassee. I moved to Jacksonville because my aunt lived here, in Riverside, and she had a nice couch for me to sleep on until I found a job. My aunt and I both loved historic neighborhoods, so we enjoyed spending the weekends driving around those areas in Jacksonville. That’s when I found Springfield, prior to it becoming a National Historic District.
It was really scary then. We would drive through the neighborhood and marvel at the houses, but at the same time I couldn’t gather up the courage to move here. But I met a woman named Joyce Holbrook one day, a true neighborhood pioneer, and she convinced me that it didn’t hurt looking. Just looking, I told myself. Obviously I did more than just look, though. I bought my house in 1989 for 29k.
Q: What were some of your challenges or concerns at that time?
A: Just getting into to look at houses was challenge. First of all, everything was cash deal. No financing was available. Second, you needed to bring a crow bar, flashlight, and a dog to look at a house – so many were boarded up and abandoned with who knows what living in there.
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Read more: Springfield Residents The Campbells and The Cudds
New Resident Profile Series
Name: Will Toraason & Jamie Ferguson
Age: 33 & 31 respectively
Status: Dating / Committed relationship
Location: Pearl Street
Occupation: Will is a Naval Flight Officer and Jamie is a Management Consultant.
Fun Fact: This couple has a need…..a need for speed, that can only be quenched by riding high performance motorcycles.
Q: What brought you to Springfield?
Will: The internet! I was stationed in Japan at the time, and searching online for a house in Jacksonville. Wait - let back track a little.
I was stationed in Jacksonville previously, and had lived in a few different areas of town. I like original neighborhoods, but so much of Jacksonville is track housing and strip malls. I knew I wanted something different. So while I was in Japan, I searched online for something that fit my taste. I found the old SPAR internet forum by chance and really liked what I found. Neighbors having fun together, working together and actually helping each other. I loved it. So when I returned to Jacksonville, I knew where I wanted to be.
Unfortunately my realtor at the time didn’t see it the same way. She resisted even showing me houses in the neighborhood and insisted I look in Avondale and San Marco. Those are nice neighborhoods, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. So I dropped her and went through one of the local realtors that knew the area well enough to give me an educated opinion.
Jamie: When Will told me about the neighborhood he found, I thought he was crazy. He kept on saying how cool it was, but I had reservations. I have friends that had some bad experiences in the neighborhood, 10 years ago or so, so I wasn’t really excited about the idea. But I decided to let him try and convince me. Besides, I don’t necessarily like cookie-cutter neighborhoods ether. They can be too impersonal.
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Read more: Springfield Residents Michael Trautmann and Will Toraason & Jamie Ferguson
“I just like to give back”, John, a CSX volunteer said, in the unforgiving 92 degree heat, “A little sweat never hurt anyone”.
That much is certain after 150 CSX and volunteers, and some neighborhood heat-lovers, spent 2 hours digging, planting, hauling, mulching, hammering, and sweating in the Northern half of Klutho Park Thursday afternoon.
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Long-time Resident Profile Series
Name: Alicia Dorsie
Age: Unconfirmed
Status: Married to Joe Dorsie for 30 years.
Location: E. 7th Street
Occupation: Retired Naval Officer
Fun Fact: Alicia’s painstaking renovation was documented week by week in the Florida Times-Union newspaper.
Q: What brought you to Historic Springfield?
A: Probably the most obvious reason: the houses. The houses brought me here.
It was 1997 and my husband and I were living in Ortega Forest. One afternoon during a Civil War reenactment festival outside of Jacksonville, I was approached by a stranger who asked if I knew anything about serving English Tea. She had heard that I was familiar with the English tradition and wanted some pointers for a home tour she was organizing in Springfield.
Well, I had never heard of such a place in Jacksonville, but we made fast friends and I agreed to help. So this new friend of mine brought me to the neighborhood, gave me the grand tour, and I was simply enthralled by the architecture and grandeur. Of course the neighborhood was pretty ratty back then, but I could see amazing potential none-the-less.
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Read more: Springfield Residents Alicia Dorsey and Ashley McCaskey & Felicia Luke
Long-time Resident Profile Series
Name: Robbie Roberts
Age: 68
Status: Married
Location: E. 7th Street
Occupation: Retired Naval officer
Fun Fact: Robbie makes it his mssion to make everyone around him laugh. He declares it, "one of my purposes in life".
Q: What brought you to Historic Springfield?
A: In 1985 I was living in a little house off San Pablo Road. My parents were older and I was taking care of them as well. Our landlord decided to sell the house, so I started to look elsewhere.
I first became aware with the area when I was much younger, in the Navy. After the bars would close, me and my buddies would drive around the city a little bit, and often drove through Springfield. I had a friend or two in the neighborhood as well, so I was somewhat familiar with it. And I loved the old style of houses, with the big front porches, high ceilings, attention to detail, stained glass, etc. I grew up in similar houses in the mid-west, so they felt comfortable to me.
I thought why not move to Springfield? I could get a big house for me and my parents at a very low price. As far as the crime at that time, well, I had heard it was bad there from everyone. But I didn’t see it personally, maybe by coincidence. So that didn’t dissuade me at all.
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Read more: Springfield Residents Robbie Roberts & Steve & Lane Manis
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