Jean “Je-Je” Harding Pierce of Boca Grande, Fla. and Woods Hole, Mass., passed away peacefully on Friday, May 6, 2022 in Boca Grande, at the age of 94. Born February 29, 1928 in Canada to Fred and Lillian Harding, Je-Je was a “leap year” baby. She was a graduate of Colby-Sawyer College in New London, […]

The memorial service for Jo Anne Speers was held this past weekend, and was well attended by those who remembered her life here on the island. After Rev. Brian Brightly officiated a service at the Lighthouse United Methodist Church, folks gathered in fellowship Hall and told stories about how they remembered Jo Anne.     […]

Barbara Joan (Mooney) Kelly of Wellesley, previously of Wayland, passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving family on April 30, 2022, after a brief illness.  The daughter of Edward Grover Mooney and Flora Banning Mooney of West Hartford, Conn., she attended the Kingswood-Oxford School, Centenary Junior College and the Yale School of Drama, where she […]

Elizabeth Jane (Bubar) Haraden, 85, recently of Acton, Mass., died in Concord on March 25, 2022.   She was born on June 15, 1936 in Fort Fairfield, Maine, as the only child of Helen Towle and Wendell Ransford Bubar. After her parents and large tight-knit Fort Fairfield family, Betty’s (her Maine name) first love was […]

Bartlett Richards III (“Bart”), 83, of Boca Grande, Florida, and Northfield, Illinois, died peacefully surrounded by his family on April 23, 2022.   Born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 1, 1939, Bart spent the first seven years of his life in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood with his parents, Beatrice Norton Richards and Bartlett Richards Jr. and […]

Father Sullivan was the first resident priest the island ever had. According to local history, the rectory as we know it now used to be a convent when he came to the island in1985. The sisters who lived there moved to Englewood to be closer to the Placida Road church, St. Francis. He was also responsible for purchasing the house and property next door to the church, which he renovated into a daycare center, now called the Boca Grande Preschool. The old rectory was sold to a resident, Mark Shevitski, and Father Sullivan moved across the street into the newly purchased house.

Isaac “Ike” Blackburn Roberts, age 93, Nokomis, Fla., died on Sunday, April 24, 2022. He was born August 19, 1928 in Clayton, Ga., while his parents, Julian Bryant Roberts and Effie Elvira Blackburn Roberts were vacationing. He graduated in June 1947 from Sarasota High; and he married Dorothy Wilma Buckmaster on June 20, 1948. Ike […]

Dick Stem, a World War II veteran who built a successful Sarasota-area building supply company, died surrounded by family at his Boca Grande home on April 13, 2022. He was 94. The patriarch of a multigenerational Florida family, Dick was a character whose quick smile and love for telling a good joke endeared him to […]

‘Kin to almost everyone on the island’ As the sun would start setting on any given day, you might find Jo Anne Speer down at 1st Street beach. Sometimes her nephew and caretaker, Nelson, would accompany her. Other times it was her little dog.  Jo Anne passed away on March 7, 2022, in her sleep, […]

BY CHEF TIM SPAIN Unfortunately, my friend Chef Josh Orlick, passed away last week. He will be sorely  missed. Josh and I worked together on several occasions in Boca Grande. He was the first person I always called to ask for help for upcoming events. He usually agreed and sometimes would show up a half-hour […]