Dorothy McNeice first came to Briny Breezes in 1938.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
In October 1938, when Dorothy McNeice’s father first parked his 18-foot travel trailer in Briny Breezes, the little park with the oceanfront view had a single gas pump where the Ocean Clubhouse stands today. Residents used communal showers, shared one phone, and the rent was $7 a week. Dorothy was 11 that year.
There is a Texaco station on the west side of A1A now, where dairy cows once grazed, and residents no longer shower together — unless they choose to.
But Dorothy McNeice, 85, is still here, a living library of Briny history.
“They put in another pump and built a grocery, which my father ran from 1938 until 1942,” she remembers. “Then when the war came, there were German submarines off the coast, so we went back to Michigan.”
Her father and mother ran a small resort of their own on Lake Huron, and for the next 70 years, with some extended breaks to raise a family, Dorothy spent her winters here.
She still does, traveling back to Norton Shores for the summer months. The 18-footer that brought her to Briny all those years ago is long gone, and the permanent home on Mallard Drive she inherited from her parents has been expanded to more than twice its original size. With three sons, Jim II, Greg and Michael, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren visiting, she needs the space.
She has no intention of leaving any time soon.
Her mother was 102 when she died in Traverse City in 2000. “She lived in three centuries,” Dorothy says proudly, “the 19th, 20th and 21st.”
Her father died at 90 in 1984, and her husband, Jim, in 1997.
Last year, Dorothy sat down, wrote about her love affair with Briny Breezes in longhand and gathered a collection of photographs to illustrate it.
Her daughter-in-law, Valerie McNeice, has turned those words and pictures into Looking Back In Time, a book that captures a simpler Florida that newcomers can only imagine.
— Ron Hayes
Dorothy McNeice (second row, third from the right) was among the Briny
Breezes students who attended Boynton Beach School in 1938. Photos provided
Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I started kindergarten through third grade in Detroit, then we moved to Lake Huron for fourth through eighth grades and Boynton Elementary for fifth through eighth grades, but only during the winter months. Changing schools let me meet a lot of different people. It gave me variety.
Q: How did you take on the role of historian for Briny Breezes?
A: My mother lived to be 102 and came to Briny in 1938. She acquired all that history from people who gave her things, so I just naturally became interested in it.
Q: Have you had other careers or hobbies?
A: I worked 16 years in the clerk’s office at Norton Shores. I also knit and I’m active in the Briny Breezes hobby club. I love to walk and bike ride, and I exercise in the pool.
Dorothy McNeice’s father ran this gas station from 1938 to 1942.
It stood where the Ocean Clubhouse now stands.
Q: Tell us about your book.
A: It’s called Looking Back In Time, a history of Briny Breezes and my family’s time, with a lot of pictures. I started it in 2011 and finished in April 2012. At this time it’s only available to residents of Briny Breezes.
Q: How did you come to have a home in Briny Breezes?
A: We left Michigan in 1938 and drove an 18-foot travel trailer to Daytona Beach. One evening by the picnic tables, a gentleman told my father about Briny, and within two days [we] were here.
Q: What is your favorite part about living in Briny Breezes?
A: The people and the activities. It’s a wonderful place to live.
Q: What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A: The music you could dance to. From the 1940s and ’50s. Maybe some ’60s. Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. My husband and I never missed a Briny cabaret.
Q: Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A: “If we celebrate the years behind us, they become stepping stones of strength and joy for the years ahead.” — Anonymous.
Q: If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A: Doris Day.
Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: Just being with people and reminiscing can make me laugh. We look at each other and say, “Did we really do that?” and we laugh. Ú
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