Author Archives: Lois A. Bolin, Ph.D.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime; and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.” He must have been talking about those mighty unsung heroes who came to Naples between 1930 and 1960 — those giants who not only made Naples a better place to live, but our country as well.

A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage was good enough for Herbert Hoover in 1928, but two years later the Walker men — Forest and his sons, R.L. and Lorenzo — had a new and improved slogan: “A car in every garage – a boat in every back yard.” Now that was the American dream in Naples.

Anthropologist Dexter Perkins said, “History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity.” Naples’ history offers us just that.

In 1963 Florence Price Haldeman, granddaughter of the founder of Naples, Walter N. Haldeman, stated, “When we returned to Kentucky after a month or so of bliss and a frightful journey that lasted 10 days, Naples became a Never- Never Land of impossible charm… it was our paradise.” (“When Peacocks Were Roasted & Mullet was Fried,” by Doris Reynolds)