Finding Mrs. Post - Chapter 3: Where Waterside Meets Memories

Captured at the Centennial Kick-Off Jazz Festival on June 21, 2025. Fabian entered the Glenn Curtiss Look-Alike Contest, while our dearest friend, neighbor and MSWC member Natalie Plasencia Calvo arrived dressed as aviation trailblazer Neta Snook Southern—the first woman student accepted at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, among many other aviation “firsts.”

On Saturday, June 28, we celebrated Fabian's birthday, fittingly, with a theme that couldn't be more perfect for our resident historian: History. His gifts were sprinkled throughout the day, each one a little time capsule. The night before, he opened a sheet of collectible Glenn Curtiss stamps. The next morning, a vintage 1917 Glenn Curtiss lapel pin set the tone for the adventure ahead.

We were headed to Key Largo to meet Mrs. Post's only grandson, Jim.

Jim lives in the home his father, Budd, built, a place he named Waterside. In one of Budd's diary entries, dated March 29, 1968, he wrote: "I made the first mortgage payment on the Keys lands: $2,270. Mom paid half."

It took us about an hour to get there. Jim had texted earlier, asking us to give him a 20-minute heads-up. When we arrived, there he was, sitting in his car, ready to open the gate. From the road, it didn't look like much. But once we passed through the dense forest, it was like entering John Pennekamp State Park; the trees opened up, and suddenly, there it was: Waterside. And there was Jim. I realized we have vacationed for years only a few miles from Waterside.

Fabian & Milly Perez-Crespo with Jim Post

Do you ever feel like you know someone just from reading about them? That's how it felt. As I stepped out of the car, I found myself hugging Mrs. Post's only grandchild, someone I'd never met but somehow already knew. Down the stairs came his lovely wife, Laura, and immediately we were wrapped in warmth. The salty air was fresh, the breeze was gentle, the tarpon passed by to say hello, and Jim and Laura had that rare kind of presence that makes you feel like family within minutes.

Jim gave us a tour and then led us to a table on the first floor with the most stunning view of the ocean. Fabian set up his video camera so we wouldn't miss a single word. Beside Jim, boxes overflowed with family memories. I quickly realized that the Posts didn't just live interesting lives. Each one of them—Gene, Harry, Howard "Budd," and Jim, deserved a book of their own.

And then for the first time, I saw Mrs. Gene Post in color, that fiery red hair, no longer left to my imagination. Jim told us how much she adored him and how thoroughly she spoiled him. As I flipped through photo albums, I saw layers of a woman I had only just begun to understand.

Mrs. Gene Post, April 28, 1968 at the Key Largo, FL property.

I saw a young, fun, woman in love… a devoted mother, wife, daughter, and sister.

Before this meeting, I had assumed that all the founding members of our club were housewives on a mission, but I was only partially right. Mrs. Post worked as an administrative assistant for the U.S. Foundry, a company that manufactures decorative & maintenance sewer hole covers in Medley, and "she practically ran the place". She had a job, was a devoted wife, raised a globally successful son, was a caring mother-in-law, a loved grandmother, cooked, cleaned, had a dog, collected things, founded churches, a women's club, fundraised to build our clubhouse, and its projects, drove, and knew how to handle a shotgun. That says a great deal about Mrs. Post, and one I'm proud to have discovered.

The curiosities of a young Gene were starting to unravel when I opened her scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings from American illustrator and comic book artist Nell Brinkley, dating back to the early 1900s. Each page revealed something new about her imagination, the world she admired and future connections with our historical club.

Gene was born on July 22, 1898, in New York City (Jim gave me a copy of her birth certificate!), so much was happening around her that shaped her. Think about it, she was 16 when women's suffrage was endorsed by the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1914, the same year WWI started. New York granted women the right to vote in 1917. Did she vote? What drove her to start our Woman's Club only a few years after settling in Miami Springs, now made sense.

Fast forward to later that day, Fabian blew out his birthday candles and unwrapped a commemorative centennial coin from Tarrytown. He was born in North Tarrytown, now famously know as Sleepy Hollow, New York. He was just three during their 1970 centennial celebration, and, fun fact, he was in the parade. He also received a "well-loved" sweatshirt from the very hospital where he was born.

The conversation with Jim went on for a few hours…So stay tuned for Chapter 4: Love, War & Grief, as we continue Finding Mrs. Post.

Oh— did I mention, "she smoked, and she loved her Manhattans." Should we make that our club's official drink?