Page 109 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

deadline in the lease, 1 will call you the next morning and we will sign a contract to sell it to you.” I
believe that he referred to Mr. Johnson as “that S.O.B.” which confirmed my having picked up the idea
that there was a little bad blood between the two men.

We had agreed on a price, and upon the signing of the contract to purchase I was to give him 55,000.00
as a binder, and pay another S45,000.00 at the closing. He would then carry the rest on a 10-year
Mortgage at 6% interest, payable by the month. 1 had not the slightest idea of where 1 was going to get
$45,000.00 to close the deal, but he and I signed a contract to that effect, and as I recall I had 60 days to
close the deal.

There have been more than a few times in my life when 1 had to have a sum of money that I saw no way
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of getting, and the Lord has never failed to come through at the last minute and provide for me to carry
out the agreement I had entered into. I don’t remember after all this time what it was that turned up that
put $45,000.00 in my hand unexpectedly, but it did and I closed the deal, and moved to the Bar None
Ranch with my small children Suzanne and Brad, and Andy was born after we had moved to the Ranch.

I loved living at the Ranch, with the lake, and with the swimming pool which went with the house Mr.
Granger had built, and of course the kids loved it too. Julie liked it at first, but after a couple of years
she began to get lonesome being out there on the ranch all day by herself, and since the house was well
back off the highway, she never got an opportunity to see anyone all day long except the children. After
we had been there until Andy was about 2 years old, she talked me into buying a house and moving
uptown.

While we were living at the Ranch, 1 got into the cow business and ended up with a herd of Brahma
cattle numbering about 300, and about a dozen pure-bred white faced bulls.

In addition to the cattle business, my cousin Cledas Dicks and I grew watermelons on part of the ranch
in partnership, and we did pretty well on the melons the 2 or 3 years that we grew them.

I did not learn about the next thing I am going to tell about here until years later after Mr. Granger had
passed away. My relating this incident is based upon what other people have told me, but since I knew
all the people involved, it was of a special interest to me.

Much of my information came from Art Butler, his son-in-law, (who is now 95 years old), and from
Mrs. Marian Hudson (George Hudson’s widow) who came off pregnancy leave to be his constant
private nurse for a couple of weeks until he recuperated sufficiently to send him to St. Vincent’s
Hospital where he finally completely recovered. (Coincidentally, this is the same hospital where Pat
Summerall had his very successful liver transplant in the 1990’s). According to Marian Hudson all this
took place in 1957, and I did not become personally involved with Mr. Granger until the mid-sixties.

It seems that one day Mr. Granger, while in his sawmill, somehow fell onto a large power drilling
ripping saw, falling across the saw in such a manner that it almost cut him in two, across his stomach.

They rushed him to the hospital, and the two prominent doctors in Lake City at that time were Dr. T.H.
Bates, and Dr. Harkness. Both of these doctors were called in, and after examining him, I am told that
they told the nurses to simply make him as comfortable as they could until he died. He was injured so
badly that neither of them felt they could do anything for him.

Previous to this incident, a couple of young doctors by the name of L.G. Landrum and C.G. York had
been discharged from the Navy as Navy doctors, in Tampa. Both of them were from somewhere up
north, and after being discharged from the Navy they decided to hitch-hike home. They caught a ride as

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