Tag Archives: Woman’s Club of Stuart

CITY OF STUART’S HISTORIC MARKER

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Recently the City of Stuart put an historical marker in front of the 1922 bungalow housing Francisca Morgan’s Interior Design Studio. The address is 227 SE Ocean Boulevard and it stands where Florida Avenue meets East Ocean; The Wells Fargo building that is gradually becoming Stuart’s City Hall is on the opposite corner to the east.

Even though the historic marker shows the plat of the East End Subdivision the significance of the developers is not mentioned. Carrie W. Webb and Sarah E. Hower, a widow and a spinster from Chicago, came to Stuart in 1913 and immediately started buying land and developing it. Their first subdivision, the “Webb and Hower,” was in Palm City at the eastern edge of Lighthouse Point where lovely homes look out on the Roosevelt Bridge and Sunset Bay with its docks and restaurants.

At the time, traveling by boat was the way to get around so Carrie Webb’s and Sarah Hower’s subdivision was considered to be part of Stuart. When incorporation was being promoted, articles say the town would extend to the Webb and Hower Subdivision to the west. When Stuart was officially incorporated on May 7, 1914 this was its seal.

The bit of land at the left of the seal contains Webb and Hower’s Subdivision. The Town boundary was the middle of the river so it was not actually in Stuart. However, since the only bridge was the FEC Railway Bridge, it was as easy to go to Palm City by boat to as it was to go anywhere else on the St. Lucie River.

Stuart was surrounded by the St. Lucie River. This made traveling by boat an easy way to get around. There were few roads before a highway bridge over the St. Lucie River was built in 1918.
This 1962 Tax Map shows the area that was the original Town of Stuart, incorporated in 1914. The boundary ran from today’s Palm Beach Road, west to the middle of the St. Lucie River, then around today’s Flagler Park back to its beginning on Palm Beach Road.

When I read the legal description of the Town of Stuart, it took me a while to comprehend. The way the boundary was determined was using the centerline of the channel in the St. Lucie River traveling until it hit the east line of Section 4. Today we can think of it as Palm Beach Road.

Roads in Stuart’s early days were so few this one that had been covered with crushed rock warranted a postcard. When this photograph was taken, the 1908 concrete block school house had yet to be built. Later the road would be 4th Street and in 1961 would be renamed East Ocean Boulevard.
The Stuart School built of concrete blocks manufactured by Frank Frazier, constructed in 1908, was within a few hundred few of Carrie Webb’s and Sarah Hower’s East End Subdivision. The school building became the Martin County Court House in 1925 when the county was created.

The ladies’ second subdivision was East End where Francisca Morgan’s Interiors is located was well within the Town (Stuart became a City in 1925 when Martin County was created.

The part Sarah Hower played in founding our public library is of the utmost significance. “The public library, which is considered the greatest achievement of the Woman’s club was started in 1917 when Miss Sara Hower, of the firm of Webb & Hower, suggested the idea and set it afoot by a donation of books.”

When I found this article, I wanted Sarah Hower to be recongized for her part in the creation of our first public library.
It was from this humble beginning in the former Christian Endeavor Hall that Martin County’s outstanding Library System was born.

Sarah Hower and Carrie Webb’s most impressive development was Yacht Club Beach on one hundred acres of Hutchinson Island. It skipped the Gilbert’s Bar Yacht Club land but contains 82 lots where many beautiful oceanfront homes stand today. When the island is broad enough to accommodate them, homes stand on the Indian River as well.

Gilbert’s Bar Yacht Club stood south on Hutchinson Island south of the house of refuge. This photograph was supplied by Errol Willes who was the last living member of the club.

This image captured from the Martin County Property Appraiser’s site, shows most of the lots of Yacht Club Beach in red. The lots nearest the entrance to Sailfish Point are the location of Bathtub Beach and are now owned by Martin County. Martin County also owns the lots where an inlet was formed during hurricanes early in this century. The two lots with red on either side indicate the location of the Yacht Club that were owned by the club’s last living member and sold privately in the 1980s.

It is remarkable that women were land developers in 1914 the same year the Woman’s Club of Stuart that was founded. As stated, Sarah Hower is even credited with the move to establish our public library.

Carrie Webb died in 1924 when she was struck by a car in downtown West Palm Beach. Sarah Hower, who never married, died in a nursing home in West Palm Beach in 1948. The newspaper said she had no known relatives.

Amanda Portwood, of Francesca Morgan Interiors, did a fine job analyzing and reducing the great volume of material provided by Julie Preast our outstanding historical researcher so it could fit on the City of Stuart Historical Marker. However, since we have no photographs of the women who were so active in the community, particularly in regard to our library, I wanted to use the attention brought to Francesca Morgan Interiors to bring attention to Carrie W. Webb and Sarah E. Hower.

The “Travels” of the Statue “Abundance”

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As reported in an earlier blog the Woman’s Club of Stuart changed its plans to put the statue Abundance in Haney Circle. Instead it was placed on the east lawn of the Martin County Courthouse.

After languishing in a New York City warehouse for years, Abundance arrived in Stuart on a moving truck in 1949,
Rather than offend those who protested, Abundance was placed on the east lawn of the Martin County Courthouse.




When the East Wing of the Martin County Courthouse was added in 1960, Abundance had to relinquish her spot.
On July 21, 1961, Ed Gluckler photographed Abundance neglected and lying on her back in a sand lot behind the city garage on South Flagler.

When the east wing of the courthouse was constructed in 1960 the statue abundance had to be removed.

In 1961, Abundance was placed in Memorial Park by the new Park Superintendent , Englishman Bill Ambler. The Woman’s Club once again chipped in on the cost of installation and landscaping. Although Abundance was beautiful and worth thousands of dollars, our community was not quite ready to give her the proper respect she deserved. The statue was a major focus for teenage pranks. The lesser ones — dressing her in brassieres and bathing suit tops. When Bill Ambler retired he lamented her being sprayed “every color” through the years.

Abundance stood in Memorial Park from October 18, 1961 until April 28, 1991.

Perhaps Abundance was hard to appreciate in her setting in Memorial Park where she stood for 20 years. The location, perhaps to her misfortune, was very close to the Stuart High School.

A postcard issued in the 1960 shows the beautiful flowers planted by Bill Ambler. Although he knew nothing about Florida horticulture when he was hired, the Woman’s Club of Stuart help pay for him to attend seminars and short courses on tropical landscaping.

This postcard showing Abundance was available in the 1960s.

During the revitalization of downtown Stuart, the City of Stuart voted to relocate Abundance to Haney Circle where the Woman’s Club originally planned to place her. Peter Jefferson designed the necessary concrete work with a sidewalk encircling the fountain. Its installation was celebrated in 1991

This snapshot shows the moment Abundance was unveiled in Haney Circle.
Tenants in buildings come and go, but Abundance remains in Haney Circle.
Today, anyone who walks down Osceola Street in Historic Downtown Stuart will encounter our Lady Abundance.

For a number of years a drawing of Abundance graced the “Art is Everywhere” tour folder created by the Martin County Council for the Arts.

Aura Fike Jones and the Woman’s Club of Stuart

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Here I am with my two daughters, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch and Jenny Flaugh, picking up our tickets to attend the 16th Annual Holiday Home Tour for which I was “Honorary Chairman.” (Entailing zero responsibilities.) This photo was taken by club member Julia Sansevere.

The Woman’s Club of Stuart asked me to be the Honorary Chairman of their 16th Annual Holiday Home Tour that took place on December 7, 2025. This caused me to turn my attention to something I have in my files that few people have viewed. It is a scrapbook compiled by Aura Fike Jones who was responsible for acquiring the statue “Abundance” during her 1948-1950 term as President of the Woman’s Club.

Aura Fike Joes accepted the presidency of the Woman’s Club reluctantly but took on one of the most ambitious projects the club ever tackled.

Aura Jones was the widow of a Washington D. C. lawyer, Franklin Jones, who had homes in Washington D.C. as well as a lovely old home in Port Sewall. (The home was passed to her daughter and son-in-law, Dorothy and Clyde Coutant, then to her granddaughter Norie and her husband, Glenn Neff.)

It was during Aura Jones’ term as president that through of a series of unlikely coincidences the statue Abundance was acquired for the City of Stuart.

Aura Jones’ son, Larry, knew of the statue with a fountain languishing in a warehouse in New York. He also knew it could be acquired by paying its storage bill.

Maya Konolei was the artistic name of Mary Connally who sculpted Abundance.
Created by Manya Konolei in the Paris foundry that produced the Statue of Liberty, “Abundance” once held a place of honor at the Salon of Paris. After it was shown in the U.S. and received high praise, it was purchased by a collector who had grand plans for it. When the collector died, even Konolei lost track of the statue’s whereabouts.

In the late 1940s, the Woman’s Club of Stuart was at a low point and the City of Stuart was too. Everyone seemed depress and angry and people were suing each other for this and that. Aura thought acquiring the statue would be uplifting and would bring people together. A beautiful work of art would be a source of pride and bring attention to Martin County.  

Although the statue was available at a bargain price, the City and County coffers were low and the Woman’s Club had very limited funds. In addition to paying the $2,000 storage bill, there was the cost of transporting and installing the statue that weighed several tons. Few thought Aura would be successful but, perhaps to humor her, the club agreed to pay the last $500 if the rest of the money could be raised.

The enthusiasm of Woman’s Club led the Martin County Commission to agree to pay for the cost of transporting the statue to Stuart. Money for the fountain trickled in from all segments of the community and the last $500 came from the club’s treasury.

Cynthia Burnette Haney was revered locally. Years earlier, Ethel Porter had dedicated a small portion of her land as “Haney Circle” in the middle of Seminole Street.

The original plan was to put the fountain in Haney Circle, a tiny park given to the City of Stuart to honor Cynthia Burnett Haney, an admired newspaperwoman, suffragist, and leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. This caused an uproar. People did not think a voluptuous goddess of wine was an appropriate way to honor Cynthia Haney.

The amused admiration of the truck driver is enough to explain everyone’s reaction to placing the fountain in Haney Circle..

The women changed their plans and got permission to put the fountain on the east side of the Martin County Courthouse.

This is the original location of Abundance.
A. Feit, the art dealer from New York who facilitated getting the statue, spoke to the 300 people who attended its dedication as did, Mary Hartman and Elizabeth Conrad.

At the dedication of Abundance on July 10 1949, Mary Hartman, Vice-President of the Woman’s Club, read a message from Aura Fike Jones who was at her home in Washington D.C. : “May this fountain become the symbol of the abundance of wisdom, talent and generosity which we claim in the building of our better community is my heartfelt wish.”

We have the photographs contained in the scrapbook compiled by Aura Fike Jones because Alice and Greg Luckhardt scanned them when there was an opportunity. The photographs were taken by Aura’s son-in-law, Clyde Coutant who was a commercial photographer at the time.

TWO MORE BLOGS RELATED TO THE STATUE ABUNDANCE WILL FOLLOW.