The “Sun and Diet Health Resort” of 1936 was advertised from Avon Park three weeks after its proprietor’s arrest in Massachusetts
What the town history says
“In 1936 Helen G. Randall, a self-proclaimed ‘Doctor’ supposedly purchased the hotel and opened a ‘Sun & Diet Health Resort,’ with the support of the Chamber of Commerce and many of the business men in town. Suddenly her plans came to an end and she was proven to be a phony, much to the chagrin of the Chamber of Commerce and everyone who had believed in her grand plan to make Avon Park the ‘ideal health resort of the nation.’” The hotel was the Highlands Lakes Hotel on Lake Lillian, closed since the crash of 1929.[maxwell-1976]
What the newspapers say
Three newspaper items, two from North Carolina and one from Washington, confirm the episode and put dates to it. They spell the name Randle.
The advertisement. In the “Resorts” column of the Washington Evening Star of Sunday 20 December 1936, between a Shenandoah Valley cavern and the Belleview Biltmore at Belleair, ran an advertisement headed “AVON PARK, FLA.”: “SUN & DIET HEALTH RESORT. LEARN TO LIVE. Rest or play in the proper way. Eat your way to health. Supervised physical culture. Send for new folder and plan your season here.”[star-1936-12-20] It names neither the hotel nor the proprietor.
The arrest. On 8 December 1936, in the district court at Wareham, Massachusetts, Judge John H. Sullivan found probable cause and held Mrs. Helen Gertrude Randle for the Plymouth County grand jury on a charge of representing herself as a physician and practicing medicine illegally. She had been arrested at Falmouth on 16 November. Two witnesses from Wareham testified that in September she had diagnosed anaemia, kidney trouble, gall stones and asthma by examination and urinalysis, sold them diet sheets for $25 and $10, and urged one woman to go at once to “her retreat in North Carolina”; both agreed on cross-examination that she had not called herself a doctor and had prescribed no medicine. She testified that she “operated a sun and diet health resort last summer in Hendersonville, N.C.,” that her “Doctor of Nutrition” was an honorary degree from an institute of nutrition in New York, that she had seen “probably 10,000 people,” and, asked where she had lived for five years, that “I traveled,” with four mail addresses: Washington; Avon Park, Florida; Asheville; and Hendersonville. Her bail of $1,000 was furnished by E. H. Bristol.[tn-1936-12-09]
The lawsuit. On 19 February 1937 a wire report from Dedham, Massachusetts, said that the attorney for “Mrs. Helen G. Randle, of Avon Park, Fla.,” had filed suit for $500,000 in contract and $100,000 in damages for “alleged deceit and seduction” against Edgar H. Bristol, “wealthy Foxboro manufacturer,” and attached his property in three banks. The action charged that she had given up her health resort at Hendersonville on Bristol’s promise of a half share in a health resort on an estate he had bought at Falmouth. The Hendersonville paper added that she was “operator of the Sun and Diet Health Resort in Laurel Park” and had “recently announced that the local establishment would open this spring.”[tn-1937-02-19]
What follows
The Avon Park resort was being advertised to Washington readers twelve days after its proprietor had been bound over for trial and five weeks after her arrest, which is about when her plans in Avon Park would have “come to an end” as the town history puts it.[maxwell-1976][star-1936-12-20][tn-1936-12-09] By February 1937 she was still giving Avon Park as her home but planning to reopen at Hendersonville, not in Florida.[tn-1937-02-19] The town history’s word “supposedly” is borne out: nothing in the record shows that she owned the Highlands Lakes Hotel, and the outcome of the Massachusetts prosecution and of her suit has not been found.
Related
References
- maxwell-1976 — Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida. 1976. the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md
- star-1936-12-20 — Evening Star. Sun and Diet Health Resort advertisement, Resorts column, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 20 December 1936, page 29. 20 December 1936. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1936-12-20/ed-1/?sp=29
- tn-1936-12-09 — The Times-News. Mrs. Randle’s Case Goes to Grand Jurors, The Times-News (Hendersonville, N.C.), 9 December 1936, page 3. 9 December 1936. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063811/1936-12-09/ed-1/?sp=3
- tn-1937-02-19 — United Press, in The Times-News. Mrs. Randle Asks Damages, The Times-News (Hendersonville, N.C.), 19 February 1937, page 1. 19 February 1937. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063811/1937-02-19/ed-1/?sp=1
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976) · book
- Evening Star, Sun and Diet Health Resort advertisement, Resorts column, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 20 December 1936, page 29 (1936) · newspaper
- The Times-News, Mrs. Randle's Case Goes to Grand Jurors, The Times-News (Hendersonville, N.C.), 9 December 1936, page 3 (1936) · newspaper
- United Press, in The Times-News, Mrs. Randle Asks Damages, The Times-News (Hendersonville, N.C.), 19 February 1937, page 1 (1937) · newspaper
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