The Pioneers

With its residential character, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables had some of the features of suburban life, but they were also unique in the close social bonds people in the community shared. This was not only because, multiple generations of the same families lived in the same neighborhood, but it was also due to a shared sense of responsibility people felt for each other. Eloyse Jennings described this as follows in the film West Grove Past, Present, Future, “People loved each other, we had a wealth of respect for each other.” This love and respect translated into people looking out for each other’s children and showing consideration to all members of the community. Thelma Gibson described this communal etiquette as follows, “Back in the day, everybody sitting on their porch, and we had to go down and say good morning to whoever was out. And coming back, it would be good afternoon. We spoke and everybody spoke to you.”¹²

Parents who would be away at work did not have to worry about their children because there was always someone looking out for them. To emphasize this aspect of communal child rearing, many in the Grove invoke the African proverb popularized by Hilary Clinton “It takes a village to raise a child”. Federicka Brown remembers that “If someone saw us doing something out of the way and they had no telephones, no connect, just no cell phones. But do you know when you got home, our parents knew what we did wrong because someone had notified them that we did something wrong out of the ordinary. It was like a family. And I just cannot say the word bonding together that help us grew up as young women and young men in our community because we had a concern of everyone in the community and everyone knew each other.”¹³

While the neighborhood has changed a lot since these early years, the sense of community remains. This becomes obvious as one gets to know the plethora of active social groups in the neighborhood that are working to keep the community safe, strong and beautiful.