Marco Island’s Pioneer Heroine

Many have played huge roles in creating the history of Marco Island over the past century. But as we celebrate Collier County’s centennial, it is Tommie Barfield’s name that resonates most prominently across modern Marco Island.

Newcomers to the island - of which there are many - probably know of Barfield’s name because of the island’s high-achieving elementary school, Tommie Barfield Elementary, founded in 1956. But many - perhaps most – modern-day Marco Islanders don’t even realize that Tommie Barfield was a woman. And most certainly most could not conceive of the depth of her incredible contributions to Marco Island and the creation of Collier County in 1923.

Marco Island Author Betsy Perdichizzi holds Barfield in the highest esteem.  

“She’s my heroine,” Perdichizzi said wistfully, "a wonderful person, and very resourceful. Tommie Barfield thought outside the box and wasn't afraid of hard work. She was forward thinking and forward looking. And she believed in this island and this island was her home. She wanted to build the infrastructure.”

After moving to the island in 1989, Perdichizzi, a former grade school teacher, jumped into the history of the island with both feet. She established herself as one of the founders of the Marco Island Historical Society and quickly dedicated herself to learning about Tommie Barfield. She picked the right place to start.

Third generation Marco Islander Katherine “Kappy” Kirk, niece of Tommie Barfield, was a local legend herself as Goodland’s postmaster of 34 years. Kirk died in 2010, but not before Marco Island City Council honored her with Kappy Kirk Day on March 5, 2004.

"I knocked on Kappy Kirk's door one day and asked to interview her about her aunt Tommie,” Perdichizzi said, "Kappy and I became good friends."

Perdichizzi co-authored a book with Kirk on Tommie Barfield, A Girl Called Tommie, Queen of Marco Island, in 1999. In 2021 Perdichizzi published a book, Legends of Goodland, comprised primarily of her interviews with Kirk. 

Barfield’s name was Tommie Camilla Stephens when she arrived on Marco Island as a 12-year-old in 1901 with her parents and siblings. She had already experienced the rugged life of a pioneer child.

Faye Brown, a Marco Island pioneer herself, born on the island in 1942, remembers a mature Tommie Barfield with reverence. Brown grew up in Marco townsite, for the most part in a home without electricity and running water.

"We had running water and electric while living in Kelly Gantt's cabin near the Fish house,” Brown said. "A house became vacant between the Hotel and Marco Lodge, so my parents rented that for $5.00 a month. We had an outdoor toilet and carried our drinking water from the hotel cistern. We also had barrels at the back of our house to catch rainwater. When we had a dry rainy season, my parents purchased water from the Rimes brothers, who hauled water from the center of the island down the old pump road."

Brown describes her younger self as a “kid with big ears.” Historians love folks like Brown who can vividly recall events from decades ago.

"Pioneers had a difficult struggle to survive the Florida wilderness,” Brown said. “Wildlife… snakes, gators. There were also mean people that they had to watch out for. Life wasn't easy.”

In spite of the lack of creature comforts, Brown has fond memories of her pioneer upbringing on 1940s Marco Island.

"We all grew up close on Marco Island,” Brown said. "We were free from rules and regulations; not much money but we always had enough. I've never met anyone yet who didn't enjoy growing up in Marco."

“Tommie really was a woman before her time,” Perdichizzi said of Barfield. "She was born in the late 1800s. She only had a third-grade education. She had to leave home when she was in the third grade and spent six years on the Pioneer Trail. That pioneer life is hardest on the children. They traveled by ox wagon. Every night Tommie was chopping wood and building fires and helping with the family. They said she was the little mother of the family even as a kid."

“She really was this major role,” said Rebecca Mazeroski, manager of the Marco Island Historical Museum, of Tommie Barfield’s impact on the creation of Collier County.

“She leads from being this almost itinerant wanderer as a kid with her mom and dad and siblings to a businesswoman,” Mazeroski said. "And I think the lobbying piece was so important, particularly for someone who didn't even have the right to vote. At the time that she starts doing all this, women couldn't vote. Just to be active in political life as a woman was a big deal. And the fact that her husband supported her and didn't kind of feel like, 'I'm so ashamed my wife is doing this,' but like, ‘Yeah, Hon, go, I'll take care of the kids.’

She married James Barfield in 1906. James Barfield was the first postmaster at Caxambas in 1904, while Tommie’s dad, A.T. Stephens was the Caxambas township’s first mail carrier. Tommie and James Barfield were considered the leaders of the Caxambas townsite until Barron Collier bought them out in 1922.

According to the current exhibit Tommie Barfield, Queen of Marco, and The Creation of Collier County, curated by Mazeroski, Barfield started regularly attending Lee County Commissioners’ meetings in 1910. Her first success was getting a better road on Marco Island. The road from the Marco township to Caxambas was about five miles long.

“She quickly became a thorn in the Commissioners’ sides,” the display Tommie the Lobbyist states, "as she successfully lobbied for roads, a ferry, and schools.”

Barfield was then successful in convincing the commissioners to build the first road from Naples to Marco Island and establishing ferry service across the Marco River to Marco Island, starting in 1912.

Prior to 1922 when Barron Collier bought most of the island, there were three communities on Marco Island: Marco townsite (now Old Marco), Caxambas on the southern tip of the island, and Goodland on the east side of the island.

"The lobbying piece is what gets Barron Collier interested in what she's doing,” Mazeroski said, "because he knows he's in for a fight for what he's trying to do. He had quietly amassed a lot of Collier County's lands for a reason. He recognized that people were not going to be happy about him doing it. He knew that he needed someone who was persuasive and stubborn and knew everyone in Southern Lee County to kind of get them to his side, which is exactly what she did. And then the fact that she goes up to Tallahassee and is very successful there - enough for newspapers to mention. It's a big deal, but that's just one part of her.”

Barfield was the first superintendent of Collier County Schools from 1923-1925. She remained on the school board until 1949, one year before her death.

Barfield lived to 62. Her husband, 20 years her senior, died six years earlier.

Perdichizzi never met Tommie Barfield. There aren’t many who are still living who did. But two women who do have first-hand memories of her are Brown and her older sister Annette Tindol, who was born on Marco Island in 1938.

"I can remember her in the kitchen of the Marco Lodge that she owned and operated at the time,” Brown said. "Mr. Barfield had died long before I knew who Mrs. Barfield was, and she died shortly after I knew her. I was a small kid around 1947-1948. She had purchased the Marco Lodge from W. D. Collier.”

W.D. “Captain Bill” Collier, whose father W.T. Collier is considered the founder of the modern Marco townsite, and was the driving force in Marco township. Ironically, these Colliers are not related to the Barron Collier family.

When Brown remembers Tommie Barfield, she was in the seashell business with another big name in Marco Island history, Harvey Doxsee, who from 1911-1947, owned and operated the Doxsee Clam Factory in the Marco townsite, now known as Old Marco. Five generations of Doxsees worked at the cannery.

"The clam factory had closed and Mr. Harvey “Stud" Doxsee and Mrs. Barfield were in the shelling business together,” Brown recalls. "They stacked the shells that had been picked up from the beach in wire baskets in a shed between our house and the Marco Lodge. Mr. Doxsee would drive beside our house and park his station wagon with wooden sides in our back yard to pick up the shells.”

Annette Tindol actually worked for Barfield as a kid.

"I worked at Miss Barfield's house,” Tindol said. “What I remember about Miss Barfield is going down to the big store. It was G and G Mercantile, and we always called it the big store. The big store had the post office at one end of it.”

Barfield and her husband James Barfield, the first postmaster at Caxambas, were the leaders of Caxambas, according to Charlton Tebeau’s landmark1966 book, “Florida’s Last Frontier, The History of Collier County.”

"Tommie was a real friendly, outgoing person,” Tindol said. "She was real smart. She was very charitable. Always kind. She loved kids. She loved education.”

Both Tindol and Brown can still picture Barfield.

"She was heavyset,” Tindol recalls. "When I remember it seems like she had dark hair, and she always wore it on top of her head. She was very neatly dressed. Never saw her sloppy or uncared for.”

"Mrs. Barfield was an old lady when I knew her,” Brown said, "and she dressed very modest with wedge-heeled shoes that laced up in front, and she wore her mixed gray hair in a bun on the back of her neck. She was always quiet and seemed to be tending to business when I saw her; a busy lady!”

Brown recalls a story that shows Barfield’s toughness.

"Mrs. Barfield had hired Marjorie Wine with two young boys to run the kitchen for her,” Brown said. “My mom was cleaning rooms and the lobby for Mrs. Barfield. Harvey Stephens, Mrs. Barfield's younger brother, was living at the Marco Lodge at the time and he had a drinking problem. He would get arguable with his sister, who didn't like his drinking. One day she had had enough of his foolishment and she walked over to the corner of the kitchen and picked up a baseball bat that belonged to Marjorie's boys and threatened him with it. My mom came home at noon and told my dad; 'I've never seen Mrs. Barfield so mad!' She then told him what had happened and they laughed together.” That's how I heard that story.”

"Sometimes Harvey Stephens' wife and two daughters, who were nine and my sister Annette's age, would come stay for a while with their dad,” Brown said. “His daughter Nina was very shy, but she would invite me over to the lobby of the Lodge to play a game of cards with her. I can't remember the game; something like old maid, I guess. I always wiped my face, arms and legs off, put on a clean dress and shoes to visit at the Lodge,” Brown said with a laugh.

"I do remember when she ran for the school board and Woody Woodall was running, too,” Tindol said. "He was the one that was running the hotel at the time; he was from New York. On voting night, one of the precincts, I'm pretty sure, was over at the Marco Lodge. And Margie and Alex Tarsitano were running the Lodge for Miss Barfield. That night at the end of the voting everybody was huddled up over at the Lodge. And I remember when Tommie won, me and some of the others, we went down to that circle at the Lodge sidewalk. There was a circle down there, one palm tree, and the road went around that palm tree, and it left a pretty good space around between them, like a little island. Everybody that lost, we built graves for them and put poinciana limbs on top. It was crazy. But, you know, it's just kind of what we did for fun on the island."