HEADLINES
	2003 Shareholders Meeting
	Honesty And Integrity
	A Moment In Time With Henry John Billie
	Unveiling Of Dorothy Scott Osceola Portrait
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E-Mail to the Editor

Editor:

I’m a new member of the Florida Trail Association, planning to hike through Big Cypress in February. I have a couple of questions.

Can I pitch a tent at the Billie Swamp Safari for $10, and eat in the restaurant (until 6 p.m.). Does it serve breakfast, too? Free use of shower?

Will you hold a food package if I mail it to myself in care of you all? What is the mailing address for UPS delivery, if UPS goes in there?

Many thanks,

George Meek
george@meekconsulting.com

Marketing Director Lucy Evanicki writes:
Thank you for thinking of camping with us on your hike through Big Cypress in February. You may pitch a tent for $10 per night at the Big Cypress Campground three miles away from Billie Swamp Safari (you'd have to pass the campground to get to the Safari). Sheila Barry, the Campground Manager said she would be happy to drive you over and back to the Safari from the Campground.

Yes, the Swamp Water Cafe at the Safari serves breakfast (opens 7:30 a.m.), lunch and dinner (until 7 p.m.).

Yes, Sheila Barry says please do send your food supply to the Campground via UPS and she will hold it in the office for you.

The address is:
Sheila Barry
Big Cypress Campground
H.C 61, Box 54 - A
Clewiston, Florida 33440
(800) 437 - 4102
Even though it is a box number, UPS comes out to the Safari and Campground area every afternoon around 4:30 p.m. as the area is so remote.

The Campground has shower/restroom facilities and even a clubhouse with a kitchen. We look forward to your visit!

Editor:

Hello Editor: Hi, my name is Felicia Frencheater. I am a Cree Indian from Alberta Canada. How I found out about your sight and the tribe. I participated in the North American Indigenous Games and I happened to meet two of the coaches who went along to the games from Miami, FL.

Yeah they were nice, they gave me a pen that had TEAM FLORIDA on it and your tribe’s website. So I thought that I should email you guys and tell you what an extraordinary website you guys have.

You guys have an interesting culture. Yeah, if anyone wants to check out my reserves web site. Here’s the address...www.sunchildschool.com. There's things there about our reserve and our school.

Most of our High School students learn through Cyber school. I graduated through normal classes, but now I'm thankful for the Chief &Council to have bring up that brilliant way of learning.

Well thanks, hope you guys enjoy that website.

Well, Cya Laterz. Keep on going. Hang in there. Keep ya head up.

Felicia Frencheater
felly_2k2@hotmail.com

Dear Mr. Ernie Tiger:

Greetings:
Enclosed is the photograph I mentioned in my email. I regret that it is slightly tinted, but it is a copy of a copy of a copy, etc. My Aunt Callie Brown, born in Boynton in 1910, has the original which was taken at the Flagler Art Studio in Miami in 1904.

My grandfather, Abel Augustus Rousseau, born in 1878 in Clearwater, is seated center, right. On the left is his Uncle Thaddeus Rousseau. The Seminoles, from left to right, are Phillip Billie (left, standing), Polo Tiger (middle, standing), Elias Jumper (right, standing), and Frank Jumper (center, sitting). The Seminoles called my grandfather, Ebby Rooky, and his Uncle Thaddeus they called Teddy Rooky. My grandfather often told me about what the area was like in those days. He said it been called Ft. Dallas until townsmen changed it to Miami in 1896. He and his uncle went there to supply cypress from the Big Cypress Swamp to Flagler's railroad.

While they paid the Seminoles to pose with them in the picture, these men were also their guides across the Glades and into the Swamp. After making some money, then losing some money in the cypress venture, Granddad married and settled in Boynton in 1908 where my father and his siblings were born.

Granddad never knew his own grandfather, William Henry Rousseau, who died in 1870 and is buried in the family cemetery near the old Clearwater High School. But we do know he lived in what is now Suwanee County and served in the Florida militia during the Second War with the Seminoles.

William Henry Rousseau was born in Georgia in 1818 and was brought to Florida as a small child when John L. Rousseau moved into the state. My children are the fifth generation actually born in Florida.

During the early 1950's, there was a family of Seminoles who lived near us in northern Palm Beach County north of Lake Park. There were three girls, Maude, Dorothy, and Sally, (who would be in their 60's now) who lived with their aunt and uncle because their own parents had been killed in an automobile accident They had lived on the reservation in Dania.

My dad owned a thousand acres where we had a dairy, and in my spare time (I was maybe twelve or thirteen) I used to trap gopher turtles and ride past their camp on my pony and give the gopher to the uncle.

One day the aunt measured my shoulders and arms with her hands, and from this was able to make me a shirt I still have in my possession today. The shirt is now around fifty-two or fifty-three years old. I had a real "crush" on Sally, and made arrangements to meet her in West Palm Beach at the theater so I could pay her way into the movie. I have to admit I wasn't very culturally sensitive on my very first "date", because the movie was John Wayne's “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.”

I didn't mean to rattle on for so long. But the picture and the shirt were always two central focuses of my boyhood. I once told someone that if God had granted me my biggest wish back when I was thirteen, I would still be a Seminole Indian today.

If you like the picture, my sister and I would appreciate receiving two copies of your 2003 Seminole calendars in exchange. I hope this 99-year old photo is beneficial to your archives.

Thanks for listening,
Daniel F. Rousseau
534 West Elm Street
Yarmouth, ME 04096

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