Marco Mission

Near the center of Marco Island, adjoining the community cemetery called the “Settlers Cemetery,” are two church buildings, both owned by the Church of God organization. Each of those buildings had their beginnings started by a Robinson, no relationship to each other, and many years apart.

In 1924, a young lady, Caroline Kipp, age twenty, was employed by Tommie Barfield, Collier County’s first school superintendent, to teach school. Caroline had already, by age nineteen, taught at three schools in Florida in the Avon Park area, near her family’s home. It was January, and the schools were closed so the children could pick strawberries. They were called “Strawberry Schools.”

Mr. Kipp, a German-born immigrant, drove his young daughter to Fort Myers, Florida, in his model A Ford truck, where she caught the mail truck to Marco Island. Caroline got a room at W. D. Collier’s hotel, called “the Marco Hotel,” and later named “Marco Island Inn.” After teaching first at the “Little Red School” in the community of Caxambas, she then taught in old Marco village at a school that W.D. Collier had built on his property between the hotel and the Doxsee clam factory. The hotel was expensive at one dollar a day, so when an opening was available, Caroline moved her belongings across the lane to a boarding house called “The White House.” (Mrs. Barfield later bought it from W.D. Collier and renamed it the “Marco Lodge.”) Fannie Robinson Kirk was operating “The White House,” and within about six months after Caroline arrived on Marco, she married Fannie’s son, Dewey. 

Mr. Collier’s school building also served as a place of worship on Sundays when an occasional itinerant preacher came along. Caroline was attending one of these services when a young Lay Minister named Forest Walker, who lived near Henderson Creek with his family, was holding services. Mrs. Caroline told me that she became “interested in serving the Lord during one of his services.”  She felt a calling in her life to give the children on the Island some spiritual guidance, and with the help of Jean Cameron Wust, Caroline began a Sunday School in her living room. 

Most of the W. D. Collier family had left the Island, moving to Fort Myers during the “Great Depression” years, and the old school building, along with the nearby skating rink building, had fallen into decline. It was at one of the church meetings at the school that Caroline mentioned to a visiting minister that the people on the Island needed a church building of their own to worship at. He told her that they were building a church in East Naples and she could go to the local sawmills to ask for a donation. Her modest reply was, “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Finally, with a little more encouragement, Caroline asked her friend, Beatrice Bronson, to come along with her to the “Slater Sawmill” near Fort Myers to ask for a donation. Forrest Walker donated his large flatbed truck to haul the lumber, with his son, Lorenzo Walker driving it at the age of fifteen.

I can still remember the old steep R.R. Grade at Bonita Springs, where the road crossed over. My friend Lois Howard Crews and myself used to laugh each time Mrs. Caroline would tell us about losing the entire load of lumber on that railroad grade. Lorenzo, who was my mom’s first cousin, also shared the story with me. No one passing by would stop to help, and Mrs. Caroline, along with young Lorenzo, picked up the entire load of lumber by hand. That incident caused them to be late for the ferry at Marco. Elijah Love, son-in-law of Harvey Doxsee, who had donated oil for the flatbed truck, gave them free passage across the Marco River on the ferry that he was operating. Mosquitoes were fierce and hot inside the truck with the windows shut tight. They most likely heard a panther or two scream out as they waited for the ferry at what is now called Isles of Capri.

Caroline and Dewey had been living on the corner of Palm St. and Lee Ave (now north Bald Eagle Dr) when they decided to move a short distance south. Dewey said that it was getting too crowded near the clam factory, so they sold their two lots, Caroline said for a little of nothing - “we give them away.” They purchased two more lots side by side and had their house moved to one. That lot lined up with Kelly Gantt’s fish house behind them that was on the water. Dewey started the foundation to build the little church building, but it was fishing season, and he had to support his family. Mrs. Caroline’s dad, Herman Kipp, and her brother Emil drove down from Gardner to put up the church framing. They, too, had to get back to work on their small farm. Mrs. Barfield hired a young, out-of-work man with a family to work a few days, and Preston Sawyer also, in turn, hired a young man with a family to feed for a day’s wages. The building of the new church was a joint effort of a community coming together for the good of all.

Caroline’s Sunday School members, in the meantime, were saving money to buy windows and roofing materials for the new church. They called their group “Marco Mission.” Mrs. Brundage, a winter visitor of the hotel from New York, sent papers to handout for the Sunday School, as well as simple things such as a card of balloons, hair ribbons for the girls and belts for the boys to be given to the children for learning a memory verse or a prayer, etc.

“Miz” Caroline, as the children called her, earned a tremendous amount of respect in the community. She began a fund to buy a piano for their church, and Mrs. Brundage again helped out by making arrangements to have a secondhand piano picked up at St. Petersburg, Florida. Most of the places of business on Marco Island contributed to the “piano fund.” The old upright piano with a round swivel stool was so heavy that Richard “Dick” Addison remembered when they were unloading it before the church building was completed. They first placed it in the Robinson’s living room, where Caroline began practicing to play it so she would be ready for Church services.

Finally, on January 15, 1939, Caroline wrote in her composition tablet regarding the completion of the church: “Finished painting so it can be decently used! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” This was a wonderful day for Caroline, as she, along with her young son Robert helped to build the church’s first bench. The first part of the church building was small, so the Robinson’s house was used for Sunday School classes. In 1941, the pastor from the Church of God at Chokoloskee Island, Rev. Clarence Cole, came to have revival meetings. Both he and Wiley Dickerson worked on the construction of the second part of the church every day and every night attended the evening meetings with Rev. Cole preaching. It was May 14, 1941, when the church was completed by Wiley Dickerson and Rev. Clarence Cole. That was also when Rev. Dryman, district pastor from Fort Myers, came down and officially established the “Marco Mission” with the Church of God and received a few members into the church. 

Forest Walker reimbursed Caroline and Dewey for their lot that the church was built on while giving the church membership credit for this donation. They were reimbursed the $600 that they paid, so no profit was made (As relayed to me by Vergie Dickerson, one of its first members). Forrest served as pastor for a few months until a licensed minister arrived. Forrest was also the caretaker of the “Grave Yard” (the cemetery in the center of the Island), officiating at many graveside funerals with his young sons, Lorenzo and Robert, helping to dig the graves. Wiley Dickerson later also dug graves, and the church people had many cleanup days under the direction of Caroline Robinson. She and the women of the church would cook dinners and feed the men who worked cleaning.

The Church of God operated under the pastorship of many pastors from 1941 until approximately 1977, when it was temporarily closed for a short time. Many changes were happening in the newly developing Marco Island and people were moving out as new people were coming in. Rev. Walter Lauster, district pastor from Naples, sent his son David, then his wife Bobbie, to help until such a pastor could be sent to build the new church. Rev. David Robinson arrived on Marco Island with building skills and was instrumental in the construction of the newer and larger church building located near the cemetery property. 

Mrs. Caroline had become sick and was no longer able to return home, back to Marco Island. Those of us who had been influenced by her faithfulness wanted to honor her memory by making a booklet we entitled “Caroline.” For us, it was an era closed in history, and the new church would be carried on by new and different people that would now make Marco Island their home.

Mrs. Caroline lived her life with the expectancy of Christ’s return: surely his coming is now “sooner!”