Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell

Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell (Mrs. Thomas Hayes Maxwell) was the author of The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976), longtime secretary of the Old Settlers Association of Avon Park (first elected in 1958), Chairman of the Avon Park Bicentennial Committee (1975–1976), and the principal compiler of the foundational pioneer archives of the Avon Park Historical Society.[aps-1975-05-22][aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976]

Settlement in Avon Park and Family Life

According to her autobiographical preface in The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976) and her published 1978 letter in The Avon Park Sun, Leoma Bradshaw first visited Avon Park in 1929 and returned from her native state of Georgia as a bride in September 1931, marrying Thomas Hayes Maxwell.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976] Hayes Maxwell’s parents, Charlie and Bertha Maxwell, had moved to Avon Park from their Georgia farm in 1927 with land promoter R. I. Harris, hauling clay in a two-horse wagon from the first clay pit opened in the area to surface the sand roads around the Lake Anoka development.[maxwell-1976]

Beginning in 1935, T. Hayes and Leoma Maxwell resided on their Avon Park orange grove—later purchasing the tract containing the original clay pit worked by Charlie Maxwell—while Leoma Maxwell worked for many years as bookkeeper for Maxwell Groves until retiring in 1978 to devote her full time to organizing the city’s history.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976] They raised four children, all educated in the Avon Park public schools:

• Thomas Hayes Maxwell Jr. (mechanical engineer, married Betty Hoffman of New Jersey)[maxwell-1976]
• Bertha Jane Maxwell (Mrs. Walter R. Day Jr., Ph.D. in mathematics and college professor)[maxwell-1976]
• Leoma Claire Maxwell (Mrs. Kenneth C. McGraw, elementary school teacher)[maxwell-1976]
• William Stephen (“Steve”) Maxwell (citrus grower continuing his father’s citrus business, married Margo Rigsby)[maxwell-1976]

Secretary of the Old Settlers Association and Archival Custodianship (1958–1978)

After attending the 13th Annual Reunion of the Old Settlers Association in October 1957, Maxwell was elected secretary of the Old Settlers Association in 1958 during the presidency of Mayor E. A. DeLaney Sr., serving in that office across two decades under subsequent presidents Ted J. Ward, Olin Harris, and Rev. Herbert D. Graetz.[aps-1971-10-28][aps-1975-10-23][aps-1978-10-12]

Prior to the death of charter Old Settlers Association historian Cora Gray Wray, Wray persuaded Maxwell to become custodian of the pioneer manuscripts, museum artifacts, and family photograph albums she had assembled over her lifetime; following Wray’s death, her daughter Mildred Wray Waddell brought boxes of these collections to Maxwell for safekeeping until the Railroad Station Museum could be opened.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976]

In May 1975, Mayor J. Marshall Davis and the City Council named the Historical Committee of the Old Settlers Association to coordinate Avon Park’s United States Bicentennial celebration, with Maxwell serving as Chairman alongside Assistant Chairman George W. Haynie, Treasurer Grace Boney, Assistant Treasurer W. Cliff Thomas, Mildred Waddell, and Anna Belle Worden.[aps-1975-05-22] In September 1977, Maxwell accepted a commemorative plaque from the Florida Bicentennial Commission recognizing the committee’s restoration of the Avon Park Bandstand on the Mall.[aps-1977-09-15]

In 1976, Maxwell and the Society’s Historical Committee (Mildred Waddell, Grace Boney, Eunice Haynie, and Katie Davis) expanded an initial pioneer photograph scrapbook project into a multi-year historical research effort to provide a primary-sourced alternative to Horace J. Fenton’s 1956/1958 History of Avon Park, Florida: 1886–1956 (see The Pioneer Historiography of Avon Park).[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976] To compile The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (published by the Historical Society of the Old Settlers Association, Inc. with financial backing from Avon Park Sun editor and publisher Edward Carter and community sponsors, and reissued in 1980 and 1986), Maxwell synthesized:

• The 1887 and 1888 promotional books of founder Oliver Marvin Crosby—Florida Facts, Both Bright and Blue and Common Sense About Florida—which she located at the Florida State Archives in Tallahassee.[maxwell-1976]
• Xerox copies of Crosby’s (“Avon Park’s History: 1885 to 1896”) and Samuel D. Lee’s (“Avon Park’s Pioneer Days”) 1919 serialized histories in The Highlands Pilot, reproduced by Highlands County School Superintendent Dr. Dan Davis and Avon Citrus Bank Vice-President Mary Garrett, along with bound files of The Avon Park Sun lent by publisher Edward Carter.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976]
• Firsthand acquaintance with first settler Mary Ann Chinn King (whom Maxwell visited in her log cabin on Lake Tulane beginning in 1932), the manuscript writings of William A. King and Byrum Shockley, and the photographic collections of Cora Gray Wray, Lillian Hood, Peggy Mandis Caraberis, and David Preshur.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976]

On July 4, 1976, as Chairman of the Bicentennial Committee, Maxwell joined Historical Society President Rev. H. D. Graetz and pioneer descendant Howard Hart in dedicating the granite monument over Oliver M. Crosby’s grave in Bougainvillea Cemetery honoring him as the “Founder of Avon Park,” and in October 1978 she took custody of the historic Avon Park Sun Linotype machine and printing press donated by Edward Carter for display in the future Avon Park Depot Museum.[aps-1978-10-12][maxwell-1976]

Related

• Report: The Old Settlers Association and the Historical Society of Avon Park (1945–Present)
• Reference: The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976): full text
• Entity: Avon Park Historical Society and the Depot Museum
• Entity: Cora Gray Wray
• Finding: Origins and Formation of the Old Settlers Association and the Historical Society of Avon Park (1945–1981)
• Finding: The Pioneer Historiography of Avon Park: Crosby, Lee, Fenton, and Maxwell

References

• aps-1971-10-28 — The Avon Park Sun. Old Settlers Association Holds Annual Covered Dish Dinner and Meeting. 28 October 1971. Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1971-10-28 reel)
• aps-1975-05-22 — The Avon Park Sun. Old Settlers Historical Committee Named To Coordinate Bicentennial Celebration. 22 May 1975. Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1975-05-22 reel)
• aps-1975-10-23 — The Avon Park Sun. Historical Society To Raise Funds For Crosby Grave Marker. 23 October 1975. Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1975-11-29 reel)
• aps-1977-09-15 — The Avon Park Sun. Mrs. Maxwell Receives Bicentennial Plaque. 15 September 1977. Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1977-09-15 reel)
• aps-1978-10-12 — Betty Amburn and Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell (The Avon Park Sun). Leoma Maxwell Helps To Organize City’s History. 12 October 1978. Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1979-10-11 reel)
• maxwell-1976 — Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida. 1976. documents/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md

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

1. The Avon Park Sun, Old Settlers Association Holds Annual Covered Dish Dinner and Meeting (Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1971-10-28 reel)) (1971) · newspaper
2. The Avon Park Sun, Old Settlers Historical Committee Named To Coordinate Bicentennial Celebration (Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1975-05-22 reel)) (1975) · newspaper
3. The Avon Park Sun, Historical Society To Raise Funds For Crosby Grave Marker (Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1975-11-29 reel)) (1975) · newspaper
4. The Avon Park Sun, Mrs. Maxwell Receives Bicentennial Plaque (Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1977-09-15 reel)) (1977) · newspaper
5. Betty Amburn and Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell (The Avon Park Sun), Leoma Maxwell Helps To Organize City's History (Avon Park Historical Society Newspaper Archive (1979-10-11 reel)) (1978) · newspaper
6. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (documents/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976) · book

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