PROFILE: Betsy Fugate Joiner

To put the timeline into perspective, by the time Betsy’s father built their home in 1940, their family had been on the island for 32 years. “When the train moved to Boca Grande, my grandfather, Jerome, Sr., was offered a job and eventually opened up his own business, Fugate’s Drug Store,” she said. Fugate’s opened in 1916, in the same building where it operates today. A few years earlier, Jerome married Betsy’s grandmother in 1911 and in 1912, Betsy’s father was born on Banyan Street. “My grandfather Jerome passed away in 1955, when I was pretty young, but he was a big fisherman. He was involved with the very beginning days with the tarpon fishing,” Betsy said. When he passed away, Betsy’s uncle took over the family business.