Police found fuel and gift cards during traffic parking on human smuggling routes

Brooksville's 2nd Veterans Day Celebration

Show us your sunshine: this is the season of festive feasts

I am a very good recorder, but I think my notes are nothing compared to my father. I cherish his three green farm record books. They are a true journey back in time. They cover his early years as a poultry farmer from late 1950 to January 1953. During that time, my father kept a detailed record of his income and expenses, including the details of building a house from scratch. Flipping through these pages, you will see the monthly records of their new lives as farmers in Masaryk Town.  

I hope he is here to answer some of my questions now. How did it all come from? In 1950, my parents left Illinois and drove to Florida. Why Florida? Because my grandparents moved there a year or so ago. Staying away from the cold and humid northern winter is a necessary measure for my grandma's health. So my parents and my 3-year-old brother Lou packed up the car and walked south to meet them. I haven't even appeared in the photo yet. Where will they go? They will settle like my grandparents in a small Slovak community called Masaryktown south of Brooksville. I don’t know how my grandparents knew about this town. They are descendants of Slovaks, as are most of the residents in this small community established almost 100 years ago.

What will dad do now? He used to work for the International Harvester Company in Illinois. Among other things, the company also sells agricultural machinery. I can't imagine leaving a stable job, adapting to life after World War II, and then starting something new and different. The father is 36 years old. How much does he know about agriculture and chicken raising? And there is no house yet. According to Dad's Green Paper, they paid $25 a month in rent and stored the furniture. Grandpa's house is too small for them to share, so they must have found something nearby. They rented it for a year until October 1951. At the same time, Dad had some ideas about his house. He bought blueprints from a company called Weyerhaeuser 4-Square. They provided detailed plans for the 1950s house model. Various styles and styles. I don't think Dad has any construction skills, but he found a friend who works in woodwork and another farmer who knows electricity. It took the three of them half a year to build the farmhouse that still exists today. They added a porch to the original 7-room plan. Material and labor costs are almost twice the original estimate of $5,500. A total of 9,000 USD is required. I have Dad’s Green Paper to prove it. He spent most of the available cash to buy a house, and then applied for a personal loan of $3,000. I'm sure he will put any farm profits back into the house. I can imagine that by the end of 1951, they all moved into the unfinished shell. When I was born, the house was completed and brand new. Please refer to the $110 symbol under the health expenses in February 1952. This is me! 55 dollars to see the doctor. That is the Harvard doctor. From the 1930s to 1964, he practiced in Brooksville. He was commended for the town doctor mural on the back wall of the Hogan Law Firm in the city center. Another 55 dollars went to the hospital. This building no longer exists. This is just a clearing on the big bend we headed north into the city. In the same month, candy was US$3.55 and cigars were US$3.75. Mom immediately got a 28-dollar rocking chair. In November, they bought a 16-dollar stroller. Every expense was recorded and carefully completed in Dad’s own handwriting. 

Like many farmers in Masaryk, Dad bought chickens. He reads books about the poultry industry and learns from other farmers. He started raising laying hens and then selling eggs. We start with 500 chickens, then we have 1,000, and so on. He cleared the land and built four large chicken coops. When everything is done, we will have thousands of chickens. This is not a huge farm, but it is enough to keep us busy. Work 24/7. There are eggs that need to be selected, cleaned and graded. Cleaning is done by feeding the eggs into the machine-spray water and brush. You must stand there to feed them and then take them off the other side. The classification is done with another machine. The egg will rise along the belt, and then roll down a small slide from small to large according to its size. Someone must watch the machine. Picking eggs is a daily chore, not once, but two or three times. Small pick-ups in the morning, noon and afternoon. You have to calculate what you choose. I will put the full basket outside the chicken coop and let my father take it back to the egg house. In my memory, I can see my dad or my grandma smiling, holding a basket of eggs on each arm. That egg house is our main center for processing, cleaning and sorting. The eggs are placed in a box, then a cooler, and finally taken to the market. We will sell some eggs privately and keep other eggs for the store. People just drive into the driveway and want to buy eggs. According to word of mouth, there are eggs to bargain. Broken eggs are very delicious, only 25 cents per dozen. Store eggs sell for 50 to 60 cents per dozen. People will buy a box of broken eggs and distribute them to all their neighbors. We hand over a case to my uncle in Tampa every month. The same thing, it is for them and their neighbors. My guess is a box containing about 30 dozen eggs.  

Farmer AG Mazourek in Masaryk organized Hernando Egg Producers in the 1950s. Once upon a time, this may be the largest egg cooperative in the southeastern United States. Many of our eggs go to Publix supermarket. Our farm is not that big, but it seems that we do have a lot to do. Our chicken coop has a fenced opening in the outside yard. During the day, chickens can go in and out as much as they want. Their wings are clamped to prevent flying over the fence. They were held tightly at night. We have never heard of free-range chickens, but they are just like that. I still remember checking the nest with a flashlight at night. I have to make sure that all the chickens sleep in the habitat and stay away from the nest. On a dark night without moonlight, this is a creepy job. Sometimes I have to call my dad to take care of possums and even skunks. Not many animals escape from our raw eggs. We will continue to run the farm until my parents retired in the early 1980s.

Hernando Sun is a locally owned weekly newspaper. The founders of the newspaper are Rocco and Julie Maglio. When the Hernando Today newspaper closed in 2014, they saw the demand for newspapers. Rocco is from Hernando. He went to school from Moton Elementary School to Hernando High School. Growing up in Hernando enhanced his ability to provide context for current issues. Hernando Sun printed their first issue in March 2015. They publish it every month for one year, and then increase it to weekly printing. The newspaper is delivered by U.S. mail, so it will be delivered with your mail.