VOLUMES
PHOTO LIFESAVER
Radio show leads House of Refuge historian
76
to treasure trove
BY JANIE GOULD
Florida native Sarah Prado of Vero Beach has collected
hundreds of photos over the years to the delight of
a regional historian who is compiling an illustrated
book about Florida’s old houses of refuge.
For a decade in the late 19th century, the U.S. Lifesaving
Service staffed 10 centers that provided aid to mariners along
Florida’s east coast, where near-shore reefs can produce
treacherous conditions. Prado’s grandfather, Samuel Coutant,
worked as the keeper at the Mosquito Lagoon location in
Volusia County for more than two decades.
Sandra Thurlow, co-author with her daughter-in-law,
Deanna Wintercorn Thurlow, of a book about the Gilbert
Bar House of Refuge in Stuart, happened to be listening to
Florida Historical Society’s Florida Frontiers radio program
one Saturday when she heard an interview with Prado. It was
the first time she had heard of the 92-year-old and of her connection
to Coutant.
“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Thurlow said.
Thurlow quickly obtained Prado’s phone number and
called her. Soon, she and her husband, Tom, paid a visit to
Prado at her cheerful home on the south side of Vero Beach.
“Sarah Prado’s delightful personality and twinkling eyes
drew us in,” Thurlow said. “Not only is her house filled with
family photographs and documents, both displayed and in
albums, the walls are covered with paintings and drawings
created by family members, including Sarah. After hearing
some of her amazing life story we looked through what I had
hoped to discover — photographs taken during the 22 years
her grandfather was keeper of the Mosquito Lagoon House
of Refuge.”
Thurlow said she hadn’t found images of daily life at the
houses of refuge before, except for some photos that Prado’s
cousin, Elwin Coutant of Stuart, shared with her. “Now there
were many more,” she said.
Prado’s pictures are going to appear in a new book, U.S.
Life-Saving Service – Florida’s East Coast, an Arcadia Publishing
Images of America book, due out in December. Thurlow said
the book also will include photos that Tim Dring, president of
the U.S. Life-Saving Service Heritage Association, discovered
in the National Archives, along with photos from museum
collections and Thurlow’s own collection.
Nine of the 10 houses of refuge, including Bethel Creek in
present-day Vero Beach, have vanished, perhaps torn down,
burned or washed away by storms. The Gilbert Bar building
is still standing and operates as a museum.
By the time Prado was born on Florida’s west coast, her
grandfather had retired from Mosquito Lagoon. Her earliest
memory was of watching him work as a printer in Stuart when
she visited with her parents from their home in Jacksonville.
“He was the first printer in Stuart,” she said.
She said that before Stuart had a newspaper, her grandfather
ED DRONDOSKI PHOTOS
Sarah Prado, at her home in Vero Beach, is the granddaughter of the keeper
of the old House of Refuge at Mosquito Lagoon in Volusia County.
printed a page of Stuart news for the front page of the
Fort Pierce newspaper, which was delivered to subscribers in
Martin County.
Prado remembers her grandparents’ home as a two-story
frame structure with an outhouse. A store selling ice cream
cones was a short walk away, she said. Her aunt and uncle
lived in a house overlooking Indian River Lagoon in Stuart.
“They had a flower farm there,” she said. “The house was
on a hill above the river. I remember playing on the great
stretch of lawn that went to the river.” >>