CLAY COUNTY – By any measure, 2024 was a very good year in Clay County. From rescuing and reviving a baby from Black Creek to rebuilding a garden and restoring the purpose of a grieving mother, to …
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CLAY COUNTY – By any measure, 2024 was a very good year in Clay County.
From rescuing and reviving a baby from Black Creek to rebuilding a garden and restoring the purpose of a grieving mother, to finding and connecting brothers and a sister who’s never met, to unearthing and reestablishing dignity in a forgotten cemetery, Clay County had its share of heartwarming stories last year.
Clay Today generally designates a story of the year. Not for 2024. Last year, there were several stories, so we would like to present our picks, in no particular order, which are the year's biggest storylines.
‘Miracle’ Baby Vianca rescued from Black Creek, St. Johns River
GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Firefighters and emergency rescuers are accustomed to expecting the worst of the human condition. They’ve seen death and despair. They’ve experienced levels of grief and anguish that most can’t understand. No matter how hard they try to bury their emotions beneath their bravado, there is no way to escape the reality of real-life tragedy.
Baby Vianca gave them hope that good things can evolve from dire circumstances.
In an unsuspecting, unexplainable and undoubtedly incredible turn of events, Baby Vianca not only defied scientific and medical reasoning for surviving being trapped underwater for more than 13 minutes in the mouth of the Black Creek at the St. Johns River, but she also became a uniting force throughout the Clay County Fire Rescue.
It started on Aug. 25 when CCFR responded to a capsized boat near the Black Creek Marina. A small pontoon boat quickly decelerated, which caused the nose to dip into the water and flip back-over-front. Four adults were thrown into the water, but 15-month-old Vianca, who was wearing a life jacket, was trapped under the boat.
The pontoon had a railing and no air pockets, which made it more difficult to escape. Workers at the marina raced to the scene, and one entered the water without success to find Vianca.
Lt. Thomas Gill was working overtime with a different department and was returning from another call when he heard about the capsized boat. Lt. Joe Hutchins was off duty and returning from church when he heard the call. Both were on U.S. Highway 17 at the entrance to the Black Creek Marina when they listened to the call, and they immediately turned in.
They ran onto the dock, where they saw a father and son, Weston and Ryan Daw, who were about to go shrimping. They eagerly asked them to take them to the accident scene.
When they arrived, Gill quickly removed his wallet and cellphone and jumped into the water. Hutchins said he was gone for what seemed like hours. So long, command on shore sent out a bulletin nobody wanted to hear: “Fireman down.”
Suddenly, the limp, lifeless body of Baby Vianca emerged from the black, brackish water. Hutchins grabbed the baby; Ryan then grabbed exhausted Gill, who was seconds from passing out and drowning.
“I wasn’t coming up without her,” Gill said.
Hutchins started compressions the moment he had Baby Vianca in his arms. He didn’t stop until he passed her off to fellow CCFR personnel on the shore.
Once inside the rescue squad, Engineer Ryan Rhodes continued compressions on the girl while Engineer James Conomea concentrated on the airway.
“She was gray and non-responsive,” Conomea said. “But on the way there, she suddenly opened her eyes and moved her arms. I’ve never seen that before.”
Baby Vianca was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville. Doctors there warned the parents not to hold much hope for her survival. At first, the prognosis was to warn them about brain damage. Weeks later, she was jumping and playing.
Much like surviving 13 minutes underwater, Baby Vianca continues to defy reasoning. So little to be so empowering, firefighters, family and neighbors clambered to be near her home when she arrived. There were tears and signs of joy, confetti and balloons.
Baby Vianca giggled, smiled and squinted. Too young to understand, nothing else about her young life has followed course.
The father held Baby Vianca and embraced Hutchins before entering the house. He wiped tears and mumbled, “Thank you. You’re heroes.”
Community cleans up Somer’s Garden; Provides mother tranquility, purpose
ORANGE PARK – Amid the heartache, Diena Thompson now feels a positive light shining through the leaves at a place associated with so much horror from 2009.
The lot where then 24-year-old Jarred Harrell lived when he kidnapped and murdered Diena’s daughter, 7-year-old Somer Thompson, was transformed into a food forest, cultivating fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs in a self-sustaining process. Thompson said it was made to be self-sustaining, so it never had to be taken care of, but was always able to give to others.
After becoming overgrown and seemingly forgotten, volunteers led by Life Care Center of Orange Park revived the garden into a beautiful space befitting Somer’s memory and beneficial to the community.
In the process, it has become an emotional sanctuary for Diena Thompson, where she can find solace among the flowers, fruit trees and butterflies.
In the garden, birds chirp as banana trees stand tall, corn stalks look to grow, and pears hang from their leafy homes. Additionally, Thompson said pomegranate trees, peach trees, fig trees, muscadines, and turkey tail mushrooms had found a place in the vast garden.
Thompson said this atmosphere is what she hoped would come out of the land.
“It’s just more about it being a peaceful place for people to come and just enjoy nature in all its splendor,” Thompson said.
And, she said she can envision Somer being right there in it.
“Somer was so much like me. So much like me. Had this been here instead of the house with the monster in it, Somer probably would’ve skinned her knee in here a time or two. I could see her in here running around,” Thompson said.
The property was given to the Somer Thompson Foundation in 2015. Thompson said her initial plan for the house was to pull out as much as possible and donate it to Habitat for Humanity.
However, following advice from the Orange Park Fire Department, she decided to clear it out completely, and the department also used it as a training exercise.
Following its removal, Thompson said many local businesses in the community helped clean up the remaining debris.
Asking others what they thought should come from the space, Thompson said she had much input from her community. Eventually, she decided to turn it into a garden.
For Thompson, the garden has many purposes.
People in need or just want to experience fresh local produce can pick fruits and vegetables in the garden.
"If it can help someone so hungry because they haven’t eaten, a homeless person, so be it,” Thompson said. “We should be taking care of people and helping to combat the issues that we currently deal with.”
Thompson said creating the garden was also a way for her to give back to the community that has constantly kept her going.
“If it weren’t for my community, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I truly believe that. They’re what has held me up and given me the strength to be as strong as I can be,” Thompson said.
But most of all, Thompson said she intended to get rid of a bad place she and her children frequently saw every day. She said it afforded her the opportunity not to have to relive what happened there regularly.
Thompson said the garden also brings her happiness as she continues to recognize her daughter’s story's impact on the community.
“I know that people still think about Somer. I know that people still recognize myself and my children when we’re out in public,” Thompson said. “I have to smile at that because they remember Somer.”
Even with the outpouring of kind words from the public, Thompson said She wants others to understand that what she did was her motherly instincts. Even though it was painful, her voice had to be heard.
“To anybody who says wonderful things, again, gosh, thank you,” Thompson said. “But, again, I’m just a mom. I’m just a mom who didn’t know what else to do.”
Thompson said the years since have made her a better mother, daughter, neighbor, and person. She looks at what happened and hopes for a better future for children like Somer.
“I hope that someday we can figure out what causes people to do these horrible things and eradicate that,” Thompson said. “But, I know that’s probably not going ever to happen.”
It took Thompson years to obtain the property where her daughter’s life tragically ended. What she would turn it into, she wasn’t initially certain. But she knew one thing for sure:
“I think more than anything, Somer would’ve wanted the monster’s house gone.”
Brothers, sister find each other after 66-year search
GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Wayne Gueltzow’s father was stationed in Germany when he was in the U.S. Army in the 1950s. He met a young German woman named Helga Marie, and they got married on the base.
The problem was German authorities didn’t recognize marriages performed on U.S. military bases. Moreover, the woman became pregnant, and local officials not only refused to put his name on the wedding license, but her family also didn’t allow his name to be listed on the birth certificate.
When he was shipped home in 1958, he couldn’t take her because of her for several unknown reasons. The father tried desperately to find her, Wayne said, but he ran into several roadblocks. After he remarried in the States and had five boys, he traveled back to Europe to find her, believing he had a child, and still couldn’t locate any information.
Meanwhile, Petra Heckendorn grew up not knowing anything about her father. Her mother, Helga Marie, was understandably angry about being abandoned, although she didn’t know Wayne’s father spent years looking for her.
Nearly 66 years later, Wayne’s daughter searched 23andMe to learn of her lineage. The company said it found DNA similar to that of a woman now living in Texas named Petra. The daughter, Ashley, texted Petra, and Petra said the only thing she knew was that the man who originally married her mother grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, and his last name was spelled uniquely.
Ashley knew her grandfather was in Germany when Petra would have been conceived and that he grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. Also, the family’s last name was Gueltzow. She told her father, who was born in 1960, and he called Petra. Five months, several phone calls and a DNA test later, the brother and sister met for the first time at Jacksonville International Airport the Sunday before Thanksgiving. They embraced each other and cried as they hugged for the first time in nearly 66 years without saying a word.
“There are gaps that we can’t fill in,” Wayne said. “I’m looking forward to bringing her into the family and making her part of the family.”
Petra said it was difficult because her mother refused to talk about her father.
“She wouldn’t even tell me how to spell his name so that I couldn’t look it up, and it kind of upset me,” Petra said. “Then she passed away in 2004, so then I really could start digging in without offending her. I always had questions about what my life would have been like with a brother or sister.”
Wayne assured her she would never be alone again.
“She wants to put an ending to it, to see it and to know it,” Wayne said. “I’m more than happy to do that and welcome her to the family. She has a family. She has somebody. She’s not alone. She’ll never be alone.”
Digging up history to ensure a significant piece of future
GREEN COVE SPRINGS – For almost a year, amateur archaeologist and former U.S. history teacher Steve Griffith was enamored by a piece of land hidden in the woody green acres of County Road 209.
Although quiet, overgrown and somewhat abandoned, the pieces of history that lie there are as loud as ever.
Griffith, president of the Clay County Historical Society, was a primary counterpart in revitalizing the land into what was once Pleasant Point Cemetery.
As a Black burial ground, it’s the final resting place of some of the county’s significant figures.
“Black graveyards are sometimes very overlooked,” Griffith said. “And there’s not many in the South left.”
With little record of the cemetery on file, little is known about its history and who is buried on the sacred property – until now.
Griffith and volunteer Megan Coppage have been visiting the wood-ladden land for about two months to sift through and clean up what’s left. In snipping down vines and digging up dirt, they discovered many depressions, a possible mausoleum and the gravestone remnants, some sunken, of 23 individuals buried in the cemetery. And they said there is likely to be plenty more.
“Judging by how big the family plots are, judging by how big the cemetery is and the number of depressions in the ground, we think there is a minimum of 40 to 60 people in there,” Coppage said. “And that’s a rough minimum.”
U.S. Navy Veteran George Elias Forrester, along with some of his family members, is buried at Pleasant Point. He served with the Union in the Civil War. The son of Cyrus and Dorcas Forrester, his family was the first free Black family in the county.
Elizabeth Lewis-Jenkins, the wife of Thomas H. Jenkins, is also buried there. Thomas was one of the trustees and founders of the historic Mount Zion A.M.E Church in Green Cove Springs.
Not too far from them also lies Pizel and Mary Ambrose Robinson, who they believe are the great-grandparents of R&B singer Patti LaBelle.
Although almost completely desolated, a poignant entranceway remains standing, and an intact crypt and headstones rest, which Griffith said is evidence that the land was once a beautiful, maintained space.
“Supposedly, there was a loop that people could just go in and drive around the graveyard,” he said.
The land was first given to Thomas Travers as a Spanish land grant in the 1830s. A county map shows that his heirs owned it in 1880.
Researchers have found that, in 1956, the land was given to Clay County native Joseph Johnson, who acted as its caretaker. He was deeded the property from Mercer G. and Martha Conway. Johnson’s family is also buried there.
Coppage said the cemetery is listed on the Florida Master Site File, which records the state’s historical and cultural sites. She said it is also in the Florida Public Archaeology Network.
However, until recently, the cemetery was not recorded on Find a Grave, which hosts a collection of memorials and death certificates for more than 250 million gravesites. The two have been collaborating with Kathy Kass, who has 30 years of experience in genealogy, to update Find a Grave and correctly identify each individual they uncover.
Kass said she has created 26 memorials on the site, but several have been misplaced.
Coppage said this is because there has been much confusion surrounding the exact name of the cemetery, which has gone by Woodlawn Cemetery, Magnolia Springs Colored Cemetery, Two Bridges and Pleasant Point. They also found that some death certificates do not list specific burial locations.
“It’s like a slice of our county's history,” Coppage said. “You’ve got freed slaves buried out there. You have war veterans buried out there. And these people deserve a nice and respectful final resting place.”