Brooksville Siblings Reflect on Lives of Sacrifice and Fortitude
BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — When you ask the DeLaine siblings what they did for fun as kids, their responses are nearly identical. “What fun?” they ask in retort. Then they chuckle and pause while they think, before mentioning fishing. Each can recall enjoying fishing as kids when they had the time, which was a luxury they were rarely afforded.
“We were so poor we had to put food on the table any kind of way,” says Jack DeLaine. “We didn’t have much time for fishing.”
Born and reared in Brooksville, Fla., Howard DeLaine, 95, Jack DeLaine, 93, Gussie Washington, 91, and Theresa Scrivens, 90, are among the oldest residents of the town’s historic Black community. Of the 17 DeLaine children, five remain. Sister Susan Allen, 81, is still a few years from joining their nonagenarian club.
They are children of sharecroppers who were raised in the fields picking cotton, peanuts and fruit. It was a tough beginning that set the stage for how they would spend the rest of their lives — working, which took priority over almost everything, even school.
“They said I made it through third grade, but I don’t believe that,” says Howard. Education for Black children was only available through sixth grade back then, but few recount making it that far.
“I went off and on to the sixth grade,” says Gussie. “I loved school but when I was growing up, somebody’d say Mr. DeLaine (their father) I need somebody to pick beans, I need somebody to pick cotton. There I would go. I had to get out of school barefooted as a yard dog. I got spurs in my feet from walking in the fields picking beans and cotton.”
Around the age of eight or nine Gussie and Theresa began working for prominent families in town cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and caring for children. It was during a period notoriously difficult for African-Americans in Brooksville. Gussie recalls one instance exemplary of what that time was like.
After walking more than three miles to work at her employer’s house, she was made to go home. “We didn’t have no clock,” says Gussie. “We told time by the sun the way our daddy taught us. I got there and the lady said, ‘It’s five minutes after 9:00. You go back home. When you can come back at 9:00, you can come back.’ Because I was five minutes late she told me to go back home.” Taking it in stride, she did as she was told and returned at 9:00 sharp the next morning.
Eventually, the sisters found more reliable jobs working at various restaurants, hotels and nursing homes. At one point, they both worked as cooks at Weeki Wachee Springs and recall the day Elvis Presley came through. They didn’t get to see The King, however. They were too busy working. The kitchen was busy that day.
As teenagers, Howard and Jack took odd jobs to support the family, making about $3 a day mostly picking fruit, although they could build fences, chop wood, and even catch cattle by hand, wrestling them to the ground for tagging. They were known to be hard workers and eventually found jobs in the construction industry where they mostly worked pouring concrete foundations and building cement blocks. Jack eventually began his own construction business employing anyone willing to work as hard as he.
Despite a lack of formal education, Howard also became a business owner. He acquired three small, side-by-side rental homes, and started his own restaurant, Howard’s Cafe, which had an adjacent pool hall that was sometimes used as a dance hall for teenagers as well. It was the centerpiece and gathering place of Brooksville’s Black community. For nearly a decade he served up more than just delicious soul food. He offered a free meal, a dose of wisdom, or just a kind word and a smile to anyone in need.
“I never wanted to see nobody suffer for nothing. I just help anybody that needs to be helped,” he says.
However, the success of his business would be, by his account, its downfall as well. When he denied a request from “big shots” in town to move his restaurant to downtown Brooksville, rumors flew that there would be a price to pay for his disobedience. In hindsight, he says he should have known something was awry when his insurance agent stopped accepting payments on his rental properties. After confronting the agent, he was told he no longer needed to insure the properties as there were no current tenants. He took the man at his word. A few months later, a mysterious fire swallowed all three. His insurance had expired. He received nothing.
When building inspectors and code enforcement agents began showing up at his restaurant regularly, the constant harassment became too much and he closed the doors of Howard’s Cafe. “There were some very terrible people then,” Howard states simply. Nonetheless, he continued to put one foot in front of the other and carry on, later opening Howard’s Barbecue, a take-out only establishment.
Through it all, the DeLaine siblings have held on to their faith and commitment to family for getting them through. Theresa was married at 14 years old and had the first of her nine children at age 15. More than 75 years later, she and her husband, Henry, are still married.
“We worked so hard. There was cold days. We worked so hard to try and stay together and raise the children we had,” says Theresa.
They were raised believing divorce was not an option. Although Jack was only married a short while, Gussie was married for more than 60 years until her husband’s death in 2008, while Howard and his wife, Almazine, have been married for 63 years. Each committed to staying together to ensure a better life for their children. Of the siblings’ combined 17 children, 16 received their high school diplomas and some were the first in their families to attend college.
“My greatest success is doing what I prayed to the good Lord to do,” says Howard. “To have a family and treat my family nice. Make a nice place for them to stay. I didn’t want nary a child I got to be on welfare or nothing like that. I told them to get their education, go to school, and don’t ask nobody for nary a penny. If you want something you work for it.”
And work is what they have done. Jack retired from the construction business at the age of 78 when the physical demands finally took its toll. Today, he lives in the home he built himself, block by block, on the property he bought in the late 1960’s and cleared by hand, limb by limb. He still tends to his yard and works when he can.
As for regrets, the siblings have none.
“I guess there were probably times I should’ve turned right when I turned left,” says Theresa. “I just wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. The Lord says revenge is mine. I give it to Him. If you’re strong enough to do that, it’ll work out better.”
With fewer than 5 percent of Americans living into their 90s, the DeLaine siblings are defying the odds. They credit their longevity to staying active, regularly attending doctors’ appointments, and moderation. It’s a recipe that is working as, remarkably, they all still drive. They have to. They have to get to work. At 91 years old, Gussie still works at a local nursing home caring for others. She cooks, cleans and handles whatever task is needed. Theresa cares for her husband and looks after grandchildren.
As for 95-year-old Howard, ever the entrepreneur, he can be found most days selling roasted peanuts from the property on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. that he has proudly owned since 1966, usually surrounded by friends who stopped by to chat and reminisce. After all, he says, “I just can’t sit home looking at tv.”
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