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Doolittle (who bombed Tokyo after Pearl Harbor) practiced his low flying off the coast of Gasparilla Island. We all took turns manning the observation decks. “We didn’t have any children yet, so Del and I did a lot of entertaining at our home. The Army and Coast Guard men would tie up their boats at our dock at our house on Palm Avenue. We served a lot of spaghetti dinners.” As the war was ending, the hurricane of 1944 struck the island with tremendous force. “Everyone who didn’t leave the island went down to the Boca Grande Hotel to ride out the storm,” Margaret said. “Everybody at the hotel was sent out into the wings when the storm struck. As we sat there in our rooms we could hear the windows in the four-story rotunda crashing on the marble floors. There wasn’t much to do, so we played a lot of bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Dunn who ran The Gasparilla Inn.” When the storm receded, the island was a disaster area. Downed Australian pines were so thick that the Army’s jeeps could barely travel the streets. After the war was over and she had taught school for five years, Margaret took some time off to spend with her children. In the meantime, she and Delmar had the idea of opening a package store and bar away from the downtown area. In 1947, they built the Pink Elephant. “Back then it was considered way out in the country,” Margaret said. “The only thing out there was a few cottages owned by The Gasparilla Inn.” Within a few years they were holding dances in the open air area downstairs, while the upper floor of the establishment housed the bar and liquor store. They later enclosed the lower section and opened a restaurant. The Fugates continued to operate the Pink Elephant for the next 31 years. “Everyone at the time said the Pink wouldn’t last,” Margaret recalled with a wry smile. The Pink is now owned by The Gasparilla Inn & Club and is an island institution. After an eight-year absence from teaching, Margaret returned to her duties at Boca Grande School in 1953. In the fall of 1963 the high school – and Margaret – moved to the “new school” on Lemon Bay in Englewood. She became its first media specialist. At first, she worked as a librarian, but then became involved with a government program in which she began teaching teachers who were entering the age of audio-visual teaching aids. Margaret and three other educators were assigned to a four-county area to teach other teachers how to use the new equipment. For the next several years she would load the trunk of her car every Saturday with tape recorders, movie projectors and screens, and set out for the different school districts in her territory. She eventually became the librarian at Sallie Jones Elementary School, but even after retirement in 1980 Margaret remained active with various teachers’ groups and with the community of Boca Grande. Upon her retirement, she and Delmar sold their property to the developer of the Silver King Condominiums, where Margaret and Delmar resided in a penthouse overlooking the bayou. “We didn’t move off the property,” Margaret laughed, “we just moved up.” Margaret Fugate passed away on October 1, 2013 at Tidewell Hospice in Port Charlotte. She is survived by her son, Lee, and her daughter, Betsy (Joiner), who still lives on the island. Before she passed she also experienced the joy of being a grandmother to Lamar Joiner Jr., Jay Joiner, Mary Ellen Shaffer and Meghan Rymer. She was greatgrandmother to Randall, Austin, Travis, Seth and Emily. G M


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