Naples Florida Weekly
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The lives they led


 

 

THEY WERE ARTISTS, COMMUNITY builders, heroes, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. The people we lost this year filled public and private spaces. They lit the times and places they lived each in their own inimitable way – gone now, yet at times more radiant than ever in their absence. “Now that your are gone, you are everywhere,” the poet J.D. McClatchy wrote. Here we take a look back at some of their lives in our annual year-end issue.

Adam Jobbers-Miller

OFFICER ADAM JOBBERS-MILLER WAS SHOT IN JULY DURing pursuit of an alleged thief, and now murderer, who had stolen an iPhone. He died a week later at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers at age 29.

After joining the Fort Myers Police Department in 2015, he became one of the most improved young officers on the force, with a report noting his interest in one day becoming a detective. Officers on his squad also jokingly called him “the heavy metal rock star” because of the deep, roaring command voice that could emerge from this man who could also be a goofball, a freewheeling, fun-loving, ever adventurous spirit.

“He was going to be a master of this profession,” said Lt. Jeff Bernice, 47. “He was that good guy on the squad that a lot of people looked up to.”

A poor evaluation in which supervisors questioned Officer Jobbers-Miller’s competency — while noting his unflagging enthusiasm — gave way a year later in 2016 to a review of all 4s and a 5 (on a scale of 1 to 5) with comments such as “reports are always well-written,” “good investigative and interviewing skills,” “punctual and dependable,” “able to adapt to any situation,” and potential “role model and teacher.”

Adam Jobbers-Miller

Adam Jobbers-Miller

Even as a scrawny kid he was “the leader” among his childhood gang of buddies in Wayne, N.J., a town of 55,000 people, 20 miles west of New York City, said his parents, Patricia and David Miller, who are retired and live in Punta Gorda.

Born prematurely in Jersey City on March 3, 1989, Adam Edwards Jobbers-Miller remained a slight boy, only 90-some pounds as he entered his freshman year at Wayne High School. Prone to repeatedly contracting poison ivy from the woods behind his home, he was a skater, played Manhunt, rode a moped, hiked with his dad, and later as an adult went skiing, wakeboarding and skydiving. He had a beloved boyhood pug, Chance. He also loved the recording artist Eminem and at one point dyed his hair Eminem blonde.

 

 

He has two brothers and two sisters. He lost his older brother, who he often emulated, Matthew Miller, in 2004. Officer Jobbers-Miller later noted during interviews for the police department that he believes his brother died of a drug overdose and he felt motivated to “get drug dealers off the streets.”

“He never forgot his brother,” Ms. Miller said. “And when Adam died that day (July 28), we walked out of the hospital and there were two rainbows. And I believe that was them getting together again.”

A theme of public service ran through is life. After youthful jobs such as a barista at Starbucks, he worked as an EMT and a volunteer firefighter in Wayne. He followed his family down to Florida after his mom was diagnosed with cancer. After a stint working for a lawn care service, he decided to apply to become a police officer.

He bought a house and land in Buckingham, where he and his fellow officers, who became increasingly close friends working the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Bravo shift, built a shooting range and held bonfires. During one unusual work shift, Officer Jobbers-Miller was featured on the television show “COPS.” Foot chases were not uncommon, but he grew restless during long hours of downtime on patrol, waiting.

Casey Cheney

Casey Cheney

He started seeing a young woman named Jamie. Later she and her son moved in with him in Buckingham. “I know they would have gotten married,” Mr. Miller said. “We could see how close they were.”

Near the start of his shift about a quarter past 7 p.m. on July 21, officers responded to a call requesting police at the Marathon station at 3915 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Witnesses said the suspect, Wisner Desmaret, had stolen a cellphone out of someone’s car. Found on foot, he reportedly attacked and shot Mr. Jobbers- Miller, then attempted but failed to shoot another officer. His charges include first degree murder and attempted first degree murder.

Tom Hanson

Tom Hanson

After Officer Jobbers-Miller’s death more than 5,000 people attended a ceremony at Germain Arena. Dignitaries spoke about his dedication. Flags were flown at half-mast. And Fort Myers police officers, including some of his closest colleagues on the Bravo shift — Evan Saboe, 24, Matt Zarillo, 25, and Myles Koch, 30 — found a renewed vigilance in their profession as each deal with the death of their friend. The three still work the same shift in the same zones.

“I look at bullet holes in the wall at the Marathon gas station that are still there to this day,” Mr. Zarillo said. “We do foot patrols out there and I just go out there and walk around sometimes. It’s not like a heartbreaker or heart-wrenching kind of thing but it’s a reminder for us. It’s like a constant reminder every day for the 12 hours we’re here, and the 12 hours we’re not.”

Officer Jobbers-Miller continues to be a force for unity in the department and community, Lt. Bernice said.

Ira Mogul

Ira Mogul

“To this day he is the glue that keeps everything together. And he is above in the heavens watching us, he’s keeping everybody safe, and he’s our guardian angel.”

— By Evan Williams

Casey Cheney

IT’S NOT EASY TO CARRY ON WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES, BUT CASEY

CHENEY’S family is doing their best to pick up the pieces and soldier on since his passing on Sept. 10. It’s what he would have wanted, his wife Ruth said, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy.

“He would have wanted everyone to keep following their path in life,” she said. “We’re just going to keep on doing what he wanted us to do and live right and help people — he would not have wanted us to stop living.”

Mr. Cheney was shot and killed in Brevard County while buying saw palmetto berries, a sideline to his family’s bell pepper farm. There are still no named suspects in his death.

 

 

Married for 26 years, Cheney and Ruth had three children: Christopher (30), Savannah (24) and Casey Jr. (17). The couple were both raised in Immokalee and knew each other as children.

“We knew each other since we were little kids,” Ruth said. “He would say ‘Ruth, when I grow up I’m going to take you on a date.’ I was taller than him at the time and I would reach down and he had these huge dimples. I would grab his cheek and say ‘oh, Casey, you’re so cute!’ That man chased me for years until I just finally ran out of gas. He was the love of my life and I got more love out of that man than most people get in a lifetime.”

Known as a large, boisterous and generous hometown boy, Mr. Cheney will be remembered to the Immokalee community as a third-generation farmer, family man, mentor and Pop Warner coach whose heart was as big as his booming voice. An enthusiastic fan of the Immokalee High School Indians football team, Mr. Cheney could always be heard over the top of the crowd cheering on his players and especially his youngest son, Casey Cheney Jr. who is a lineman on the team.

Mamie Blue

Mamie Blue

“I think what people are going to remember is first, he was really loud — and his voice was unique and real raspy,” Ruth said. “Whether little Casey was playing or not, if he was there he was the loudest and proudest fan.”

Everyone knew him as the first guy to lend a helping hand or take the initiative to solve a problem. Within his family and without, he was known as a “fixer” whose generosity knew no bounds. Occasionally, people would approach Ruth to tell her Mr. Cheney had paid their rent or helped out in other significant ways.

“He was always helping the homeless and our daughter will go through McDonald’s and buy food to pass it out because it’s something her dad did that people didn’t even know about,” she said. “He’s who you went to when you needed advice and she said Dad always fixed everything, it didn’t matter what it was.”

Hollis Garland Jeffcoat

Hollis Garland Jeffcoat

Simply put, Mr. Cheney was just very well-liked. He was well-known not only in Collier County, but all the way up to Georgia where his saw palmetto business extended.

“The detective said to me that he’s never investigated a case where the victim knew so many people all the way down south of the state and all the way to Georgia where so many people knew and loved a person so much,” Ruth said. “And he was a real blessing to our family.”

Of the many things Mr. Cheney loved, which included cards at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track’s poker room and saltwater fishing, simply making people happy topped his list of favorite pastimes. He had perfected the art of bringing smiles to people’s faces, according to Ruth, to the point where friends figured that she hated laughing as much as being his spouse required. Not so, and luckily, Mr. Cheney’s sense of humor lives on in his youngest son.

“Casey was always joking and never took anything seriously,” Ruth said. “When you get done laughing, your stomach hurts. People asked all the time how I could stand being around him all the time because I must be laughing so hard I’d cry all the time. My youngest son has that same sense of humor like his dad — he’s definitely Casey Jr.”

 

 

The family still has hard days and Ruth says sometimes she still thinks Mr. Cheney will walk in the door.

“He was this great presence and he should have been bullet proof,” she said. “It’s difficult to articulate what he meant to us. I got used to being at home with just me and the kids, so part of me still thinks he’s going to come home.”

However, the family honors his spirit by being positive and productive. It’s what he would have wanted after his death because it’s precisely what he wanted for his loved ones while he was alive.

“He was a pep talker and he motivated us every day to get up and do something,” Ruth said. “He was always so inspiring to us.”

So in his absence, Mr. Cheney’s family and his beloved Immokalee family moves forward by embracing for themselves the lessons he taught them about generosity and laughter. If members of the community would like to support the family in their grief, a friend has set up a GoFundMe account in Cheney’s honor at https:// www.gofundme.com/official-casey-cheney-benefit.

— By Lindsey Nesmith

Tom Hanson

CALL IT INSTINCTIVENESS, OR MAYBE A SIXTH SENSE.

It was a trait that served Tom Hanson well, all the way up until the night before he died unexpectedly in his sleep on the morning of March 20 this year. He was 53.

Tom called nearly every person he knew that night. Perhaps his intuition told him the collective weight of his muscular dystrophy, heart disease and severe neuropathy was suddenly becoming too much to shoulder.

For Tom Hanson, shouldering heavy loads was a way of life — literally. He dropped out of Florida State in 1985 to begin a 20-year career as a caddie on the LPGA and PGA tours. His crowning moment was being on the bag for 1993 U.S. Women’s Open champion Lauri Merten.

But Tom’s No. 1 passion was journalism, and he became a “name” in Southwest Florida for his biting commentary and controversial columns. He worked at the Naples Daily News from 2003-14, rising quickly through the ranks to become sports columnist, news editor and managing sports editor.

He always had the best story ideas in the newsroom, and did his best work during big news events — much like a good athlete who plays his best in the biggest games.

At age 47, Tom earned his master’s and started teaching journalism at FGCU. Turned out to be a good move, as he made a profound impact on so many students whose stagnant careers took off under his direction.

Then, of course, there were those students who didn’t take too kindly to his abrasive, straightforward style. Tom’s directives generally came in just one flavor: unfiltered.

“I’ve seen him make grown women cry in the middle of class,” one of his former students said recently.

But those who knew Tom well remember him more as a big teddy bear. A lifelong Cubs fan. Music fanatic. One of the top poker players in town, he once played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

He once ditched his cool LPGA caddie job for a year in 1998 to come home so his kid sister Amanda could have a male influence in her life for her senior year of high school.

“He took her to school every day,” said Judy Hanson, their mother. “Tom didn’t have to do any of that, but he wanted to make sure somebody was there for his little sister.”

Always showing those good instincts.

— By Ron Hartman ¦ ¦ ¦

Ira Mogul

THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS, AND LOCAL RESIDENT IRA MOGUL’S devotion to performing with the Naples Players won’t soon be forgotten. Though he was afflicted with Parkinson’s disease and passed away on Sept. 1, no one forgot what a presence he had onstage before he stopped treading the boards.

“What I love about Ira is he was just happy experiencing, participating or supporting the theater in any way he could,” said artistic director Jessica Walck. “If he wasn’t in a show, he was at the preview encouraging the cast or giving the director notes — and he wasn’t shy about his opinion or knowledge.”

While Mr. Mogul enjoyed a successful career as a general agent at Mass Mutual, he really came alive in retirement when he moved to Naples and focused on the arts. Over the course of his time in town, he performed in over 30 productions with the Naples Players and other local theater groups.

Such a valuable asset to the theater community will be missed, and not just because he had a particular talent for playing judges. His confidence was unmatched.

“My favorite memory of Ira is when the guy playing the Captain in ‘Anything Goes’ got a horrible nosebleed and couldn’t go back on stage,” Ms. Walck said. “He was in his priest costume and he took a big breath in and said ‘I’ve played it before and I’m prepared to play it again.’ He didn’t even want to know more about the Captain. He was convinced he knew the blocking — and he didn’t — but he was just always there to do whatever needed to be done.”

With his magnetic personality and commanding presence, Mr. Mogul’s charisma leapt off the stage. When he could no longer perform, he brought that sparkle to the company’s educational workshops and seminars.

“He always seemed to be playing the role where everyone was looking at him,” Ms. Walck said. “He was taking classes right up until he passed and he was just a very confident man and extremely loving, so people were just attracted to him. He could smile and make everyone else smile.”

As the years piled up, Ms. Walck eventually witnessed his exit from the stage, but he resolved not to allow his illness to define or limit him when it came to enjoying the things he loved. Directors made accommodations for him over the years as his mobility decreased, but he kept acting until he couldn’t anymore.

“He just wouldn’t give in to what his body was doing to him,” Ms. Walck said. “One of the roles he did in ‘Hello Dolly’ where he was the judge, they built the whole platform for him because he was shaky at that point, but you’d never know anything was wrong with him. He was the kind of guy who could pause and forget a line, but you never knew. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.”

One of Ms. Walck’s favorite memories was watching an old video of his performance as family solicitor Herbert Parchester in “Me and My Girl.” Though Mr. Mogul had limited mobility at that time in his life, he was always happy to spend time with friends from his theater community and invited Ms. Walck for a visit and a screening.

“He would be beaming watching it,” she said. “It was so nice to see him fully able to move about. All his charm was out and even on video, he just has it. It was very special to me that I could watch it with him.”

Members like Mr. Mogul are who motivate professionals like Ms. Walck to continue working in community theater.

“He really needed that place in his life and it kept him going. I think of him and remember to keep on keeping on, even on the hard days,” she said. “I get asked all the time why I don’t go work at a professional theater, but I do this for people like Ira. He always reminded me that’s why I do what I do and that’s why I came here.”

— By Lindsey Nesmith

Mamie Blue

PERHAPS IT WAS HER CAN-DO ATTITUDE, OR MAYBE HER AFFINITY FOR bawdy jokes, but Collier-Lee Honor Flight will dearly miss volunteer Mamie Blue. After a brief whirlwind tenure as a donor, volunteer and participant in the organization, Ms. Blue passed away in November.

Rick Wobbe, a volunteer with Collier-Lee Honor Flight who worked closely with Ms. Blue, fondly remembers his first interaction with her when she was one of the honored veterans the organization transports to Washington, D.C., war memorials.

“She just absolutely took over everything,” he said of the bus trip to the capitol. “She was rowdy as hell and she sucked everybody into her fun. By the time we were done, everyone on the bus was cracking jokes and having good fun with Mamie.”

Born on March 4, 1929, in Farrell, Pa., Ms. Blue studied nursing at Sharon General Hospital School of Nursing before joining the Navy to serve in the Korean War. Once she was discharged, she spent the rest of her career at Three Rivers Hospital in Michigan and later retired to Naples. Ms. Blue spent her later years as an active member at St. Agnes Catholic Church and was exceedingly proud of her involvement with Collier-Lee Honor Flight. After participating as an honored veteran on Mission 13 a few years ago, Ms. Blue decided she wasn’t yet finished with Collier-Lee Honor Flight.

“Being a veteran, you can only go once. Once you’ve gone, that’s it. It’s over,” Mr. Wobbe said. “But for Mamie, she wound up sponsoring Mission 16 — we called it Mamie’s Sweet 16 — and her assignment was to cheer up the troops and she was allowed to go on another trip.”

From there, Ms. Blue became a regular volunteer. Her candor, good humor and leadership inspired the group to level up its operations and stage some of the best missions in its history.

“We were doing far more with Mamie that we ever had before,” Mr. Wobbe said. “She said it was the most wonderful part of her life. She was busier in her old age working for honor flights than she would have been sitting at home watching TV.”

However, simply volunteering did not satisfy Ms. Blue and for Mission 18, she pulled a stunt that made her coming contribution impossible to refuse.

“We always had these fights with her that she couldn’t do this or that because we weren’t going to have this little old lady who’s broke because she spent all her money on us,” Mr. Wobbe said.

Rest assured, she took care of herself just fine. The real problem for Ms. Blue was the organization’s reluctance to accept large donations from her, so she hatched a plan that would make it difficult for them to refuse.

“At the meet-and-greet for Mission 18, she had this big cardboard sign saying that she donated $100,000 to us and we were sitting there like, what do we do?” Mr. Wobbe said. “She went right out in public and did it.”

After assurance from her accountants that Mamie could spare the cash, Collier- Lee Honor Flight relented to her wishes and took her donation. It fully funded Mission 18.

“It was the biggest thing in the world to us,” Mr. Wobbe said. “It’s a lot of money and it’s really hard for us when we’re usually doing it $5 at a time — she always said that she wanted to see where her extra money went and to see it spent correctly.”

With that donation, Ms. Blue also earned her way onto one more mission, but fell ill before she could take off to Washington D.C., with the incoming veterans. She passed away on Sunday, Nov. 4.

“We really miss her,” Mr. Wobbe said. “She was instrumental in helping us get everything done for the pinning ceremony to honor the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. We pinned 641 veterans — the largest number in the country — and she had passed away just the week before.”

To pay their respects, the organization arranged for an additional flyover at the ceremony to honor Ms. Blue’s contributions to their organization and local veterans.

While Mr. Wobbe appreciates her dedication to Collier-Lee Honor Flight, he most misses her fiery personality.

“When she had her mind made up, she would get on me like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “She had this way of batting her hand at you like ‘yeah, yeah. Get out of here.’”

Her most important contribution, though, was the joy she brought other veterans through her work with the group. Visiting the war memorials dedicated to their service is a very emotionally significant event in their lives, Mr. Wobbe said. Once Ms. Blue experienced it, she was eager help other servicemen make the trek to Washington, D.C.

“She saw the joy it brought people and the closure that veterans have,” Mr. Wobbe said. “It meant something to her to reach out and touch all these people.”

In her obituary, her family urged others to donate to Collier-Lee Honor Flight to continue her work. For more information on the group and Ms. Blue’s contributions to local veterans, visit www.collierhonorflight.org.

— By Lindsey Nesmith

Hollis Garland Jeffcoat

A FIFTH-GENERATION FLORIDIAN BORN AT LEE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL in Fort Myers on May 13, 1952, Hollis Jeffcoat left home to be an artist and never looked back.

At least not until a quarter century later when she returned for good, an internationally exhibited abstract expressionist oil painter. She continued to live and paint on Sanibel Island, inspired by the nature she knew in childhood.

In the early 1970s, she left home and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute before moving to the Big Apple to attend the famed New York Studio School in Greenwich Village. Her parents were against her plan to leave town, so she didn’t have their financial support.

“She just went,” Maureen Watson said. “She said she spent 50 cents a day. She’d buy a can of tuna for herself and a can of cat food for her cat.”

But the school’s faculty and the neighborhood where she lived, off 9th Street, provided entrée into a leading edge, international art scene. The old Cedar Tavern bar was blocks away, a hangout that in its time attracted beat writers, avant-garde musicians, and abstract expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, the latter being one of her favorite artists.

Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse were among the earlier generations of painters that influenced her work. She was well versed in art history and had a nearly photographic memory for paintings, Ms. Watson said. She painted in oils, but also produced many sketches, prints and etchings.

Ms. Jeffcoat’s finely honed sense of color was heightened by her synesthesia (discovered late in life), a condition that a Vox magazine writer described as when “the activation of one sense triggers another.” For instance, Ms. Jeffcoat would see a specific color associated with a number or sound.

An old friend, sculptor and fellow art student who lives in upstate New York, Deborah Masters remembers Ms. Jeffcoat as a magnetically attractive personality. They also had a job together at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“She was tall, thin,” she said. “She had this gorgeous curly hair. She was so beautiful, just an incredible person … She had (strong) opinions about art but she wouldn’t stuff them down your throat. Everyone loved her. It was really annoying to me because I have a much more abrasive character than she had.”

Although Ms. Jeffcoat has been romantically linked to men and women, Ms. Masters believes she was mostly interested in women, and being straight herself allowed the two to be friends without complication.

“I don’t think she was really madly in love with anybody until she met Maureen (Watson),” she said. “She was so happy with her.”

They met in 2001 and lived together until the end. Hollis could be reclusive but had an expansive personality.

“She was entertaining, and brilliant,” Ms. Watson said. And when she talked to you in a crowded room, you felt like you were the only one in the room, she said

As owner of the Watson MacRae Gallery on Sanibel, she curated a retrospective tribute of Ms. Jeffcoat’s work that traced her professional life starting in 1976 in France after leaving New York City. There, Ms. Jeffcoat apprenticed with painter Joan Mitchell.

Across the gallery was hung her final work, “7th Story: A Complex Mystery,” completed on Sanibel in 2017.

Some works in the retrospective looked unusually realistic against her many abstractions, including one of Place des Vosges in Paris.

“When Hollis was going through some trauma or tragedy she would paint representationally, because it helped her get grounded, helped her come back in to herself, and then she could fly and paint abstractly,” Ms. Watson explained. “So this was after a traumatic relationship she had to escape from.”

One painting called “Bird Song II” was presented alongside a quilt named “Bird Song for Holly” based on the painting, by an elementary and high school classmate of Ms. Jeffcoat, Jeanie Baker.

After Ms. Jeffcoat died she created her own interpretation of the piece that allowed inspired her to “hear birds singing, and smell the salt air.”

“(The painting) is who she was,” Ms. Baker said. “It was bright and bold and strong, and very thought out.”

There were also a series of uncharacteristically ominous, brooding paintings on display. “Fish Crow II” depicts a dark bird looming against a gray dawn flecked with light.

An art consultant and former director of The von Liebig in Naples, Barbara Anderson Hill’s favorite Jeffcoat works evoked for her a similar reaction — though she described them as looking even more abstract, like a dark bird or possibly mangrove islands, so they may have been different paintings.

“It was all that delicious mysterious stuff that Hollis was able to do that I found intriguing,” she said. “… What I loved about them was exactly what you said. They have an ominous brooding quality. And you’re seeking throughout the surface to find solutions for exactly what it is you’re looking at and never quite knowing.”

The most touching feature of the exhibit was Ms. Jeffcoat’s old paint-spattered clogs, perched atop a white pedestal. ¦

— By Evan Williams

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