Contributed by Jim Cone

William Hubbard "Dock" Cone's Biography

My most memorable character, was my father who led a quiet simple life, a veteran of WW-1, a citrus grove supervisor and later in my life, was a farmer. He was born in Madison County Fla on 22 June 1897 to parents of farmers and shingle mill operators. His life was not an easy one but he came from a family that stood for right and lived a life of honesty and hard work. He had two older sisters and a younger brother and lived miles from the nearest neighbor.

His education was skimpy, barely being able to complete 4th grade, as he was required to work on the farm when needed. In the off-season from farm work, he was required to work in the shingle splitting mill and it was his job to select and cut the most perfect cypress trees and bring them to the mill which his father, William Sherman Cone, was the owner and operator, would split into shingles for roofing.

In bringing the trees to the mill, he and his younger brother, Everett, would use a cross-cut saw to fell the trees. As any southerner knows, cypress trees grows in and around water. It was their job to wade out in the water and cut the trees. Often the water was shoulder deep and it was always cold in the cutting season. Many times, they would have to break ice around the edges of the ponds and then wade out. When the trees were felled and the branches were removed, they would tie a rope to one end of the tree and drag it to the shore. They would then build a fire and dry their clothes. Afterwards, they would hitch a mule to the log and drag it to the mill. Often, this could be several miles and they had to drag one log at a time. Then, in their “spare time”, they were would cut the logs into a certain length in preparation for splitting. In their other “spare moments”, they had to stack the split shingles in stacks for drying. The stacks had to be just right, or their father would make them do it over.

When Dad was 19 (1916), he had been away from home on an extended visit with some relatives in South Florida. It was slack season and he wanted to explore some of the sights of South Florida that he had never seen. Eventually, he made his way back home and when he arrived in Greenville, he had a long walk ahead of him to reach the farm. A farmer in a wagon gave him a ride for part of the distance and when they reached a ‘cross-road’ he resumed walking. He was about 2 miles from home when he saw his sister Kate walking in the same direction ahead of him. He called out to her to wait for him but she kept walking. He hurried his pace but still couldn’t catch up. They finally reached a curve in the road and she disappeared from his sight. He told himself that he would take a short-cut and head her off when he again reached the road. When he got back to the road, she had disappeared completely from his sight. He muttered to himself that he was tired of playing the game and resumed his journey, expecting her to catch up with him, but he never saw her again.

When he reached the lane going up to his house, he noticed about 20 teams of buggies and wagons hitched at various places in front of his house. His mother was the first to see him walking up and she ran out to greet him. He noticed right away that she was grief stricken and was crying beyond control! He inquired about what was wrong and she told him that they had just returned from the cemetery after Kate’s funeral. She said that they had tried several places to contact him about her dying 3 days ago but couldn’t locate him anywhere. She said that they were forced to go ahead with her funeral! She had been dead for three days but yet appeared in the road in front of him just moments ago! My Dad showed me the spot in the old road a few years before he died in 1987 and it was an eerie feeling to stand in the spot where he had seen her! Although the road had been changed to a more modern road, the old road bed was still there and resembled more of a walking trail than a road. He showed me exactly where the road curved and how he had taken the short-cut to head her off. I was really glad when we left that spot because I had a feeling that someone was watching me!

In 1918, he was inducted into the Army and was sent to Key West Fla. in preparation for embarkation to France. Shortly after arriving there, The Key West Army Base had an outbreak of influenza and my Dad was stricken along with over half the population of the base. There were so many corpses that they had to turn the barracks into a morgue! They had to use the sleeping racks (bunks) and place dead bodies in ice to preserve them until they could be shipped back home. My Dad was placed in ice and had been there for two days until a Capt. came by searching for a certain body. He raised my Dad’s foot up so that he could read the tag. When he moved his foot, Dad began to move around and started moaning! They immediately removed him from the ice and gave him immediate medical attention. As a result of the ice treatment, he lost one lung and was never able to talk very loud and was not able to call hogs. There was one unconfirmed story that Dad had to call the hogs by knocking on the side of the feed trough and they would come running! The story goes that things were going really well until a rouge woodpecker started living in the vicinity of the feed lot and his pecking on first one tree and then another, caused about 15 hogs to run themselves to death in search of the expected feed!

He was discharged immediately and sent back home for recuperation. The others in his detachment were sent on to the Invasion of France and only 10 of his original until survived the landing and/or the influenza out break. The Captain that found him in the ice was from his home County of Madison and in his later years became a successful attorney-at-law. He and Dad remained friends for years until Attorney Cowart died. They spent many hours on the loafers bench in front of the Court House. It was Mr. Cowart who finally forced the VA Administration to grant him some medical attention after Dad became stricken with cancer for the third time. The excuse that the VA used was that Dad didn’t have the required minimum 90 days or more of service to be qualified for Veterans Benefits. Ironically, Dad died in the VA Hospital in Gainesville, Fla. on 07 Feb 1987 after his third encounter of cancer.

Dad and Mom were the parents of 8 children, 7 surviving into adulthood and we all graduated from High School. He insisted that schooling came before farm crops and tried his best to arrange our work schedule so that we would be able to do our farm work after school. We did our lessons by the aid of kerosene lamps until we were well up in age and finally about 1947, we got electricity out to our farm.

He was truly a friend as well as a parent. He never had to whip any of us and all he had to do was look at us in a certain manner and we knew that he meant what he said. He was soft spoken, easy going, but had that certain mannerism that you knew just how far to go with him.

If he thought that you were right, he would stand behind you completely and woe to them that caused any of his children any harm! He is missed by the remaining 5 of his children and his grand children as well. He was a father, friend, companion, and fishing partner who knew how to live and got the most out of life.

I honestly feel that he and Kate have finally caught up with each other after that long curve in the road!

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