A Family of Ten
In May 1936, John Henry Minton Sr. (known as Henry) and his wife Bertha bought the farm. Henry is credited with starting the first sod business in town. George Anderson, a Davie grocer, remembered that "Minton came with an old flat bottomed truck, a wife, and eight kids. He did fine in time but the hard way."
When the Mintons arrived at the farm, there was no electricity or indoor plumbing. During their time here, electricity arrived, and the Mintons added an indoor kitchen and bathroom. The 1940 census valued the farm at $12,000, a large sum compared with their neighbors on the same census page. The difference presumably reflects the farm having electricity and indoor plumbing sooner than the neighbors' properties.
The Children
The eight children living there in 1936 (and their ages) were John H. Jr. (14), Worrell (13), Aleatha (12), Vernon (8), Miriam (7), Charles (6), Laurian (4) and Norman (2).
When they arrived, John Jr. was already of high school age and would have gone to Fort Lauderdale High School, and Worrell perhaps did as well. The younger children attended the Davie School for some of the elementary grades.
A Boy in the Country
In 2001 or 2002, John Minton Jr., then in his early 80s, stopped by the farmhouse with his wife and spent an hour with John Hanson, telling stories of life on the farm in the 1930s: eight-foot rattlesnakes, fist fights, and cleaning out the water tank. He remembered the windmill standing on the ground about 30 feet south of the septic tank. He also shared the earliest known photograph of the house, taken during the Minton years. When John Minton was in his late 90s, he spoke with Bill Hanson by phone and reminisced about what a wonderful place the farm had been to live, especially his times spent fishing off a small pier on the canal across Griffin Road.