Superstar Historian and Author, Cesar Becerra, shares stories on his newest book ORANGE BLOSSOM 2.0

We are live. We are talking to Cesar Becara, and we are talking about beautiful South Florida. And I'm asking everyone that's watching or will watch, how familiar are you, and do you know who is the co-mother of Miami? So welcome, Cesar. How are you?

Hi, Adrienne, it's good to see you. I miss you.

I miss you too, Caesar. You are so fun. You're a fun-loving guy that loves to go out. You love Burning Man, you love camping, hiking. You've walked across the whole United States, you've written books. Robert is here, and now you're doing something totally cool and new, and you have been researching. And who is the co-mother of South Florida, Miami?

The co-mother of Miami is a lady named Mary Bulmer Brickell, or just Mary Brickell. And yeah, they were getting props to her because for many, many years, and even today, you can slam your head against the wall trying to find anything on Mary. It's very hard to find anything. I start— that's starting to change. But when you look up the origin story of Miami, you're going to come up with another remarkably interesting woman named Julia Tuttle, which gets the, the basis of the, of the recognition for birthing Miami. But, uh, my studies and my research and other historians and other researchers have now unearthed in the last 25 years a mountain of evidence that cannot be ignored anymore that it was a lone shooter type situation of just Julia. It is now very clear that Julia and Mary Brickell equally had a very important role in birthing Miami, and that meant how to get Henry Flagler to Miami, but we'll get to that a little later. How are you?

I know, I'm great, I'm great. This is so interesting because when I think of Brickell, I immediately think of looking up and I think of the view. I really love Brickell. I mean, I just, I love Miami and all the architecture and all the shiny and the metals and the sun and, and you can't find parking and all of that. I, and I really do miss that living here in Daytona Beach. But I, I never really thought, okay, Brickell, I kind of thought, and I asked you my first question when I saw Caesar was, wait, isn't it a town called Brickell? And what did you answer me? Because I think many people may think, because they'll say, I live, yeah, I live in Brickell, and I'm always like, okay, the city of Brickell.

That's exactly what's happening today. The, the area is so popular, so posh, so ritzy that other parts of Miami are trying to actually borrow the name. There's actually phenomenon on Expedia where some hotels are listed as Brickell North, which they're not even in Brickell, but they're trying to siphon off the fervor and the fashion and the popularity that Brickell is. But it's just a neighborhood in Miami within the city limits that is flanked in the middle with basically Brickell Avenue, named after William and Mary Brickell. Who came to South Florida in 1871 via Cleveland, via New York, via Australia, via England. Mary's from England, so we have some English background to Miami, and a lot of people don't even realize that, uh, you know, Mary is British, you know, by birth, and Australian by most of her years before she met William. But we have all this great heritage. But basically, there's even a phenomenon south of Brickell, of South Bayshore Drive trying to rename itself South Bayshore Brickell Drive, because they're again wanting to take all this, which is hilarious to me, Adrienne, because there was a time and place where nobody gave any respect to the Brickells, talked about the Brickells, gave any recognition to the Brickells, and now people want to rob the Brickell name for their own kind of, you know, uh, popularity. So I have a question.

How many people actually live in what's considered Brickell right now?

Well, a lot. I would say I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a great big guess here, but probably 100,000 people in a very small area. The reason I say that is because Brickell is booming skyward. In fact, along Brickell Avenue is the tallest skyscraper south of New York City on the eastern coast of the United States.

Whoa, whoa, wait a second. So, so, and what, what is the— for the Brickell Avenue area, what is the, uh, mileage? Is it like 2 miles?

Probably closing in on maybe just 1 mile long, about half a mile wide. It's not a lot, um, but it's packed in with some of the most beautiful, massive, and tall condominium structures and business skyscrapers, because alongside Brickell Avenue is every known recognizable South American bank and American bank, because Brickell Avenue is the banking center of Miami that does business with the Americas. So the portal through South America and from South America into the United States is Brickell Avenue, sitting right on Brickell Avenue. Ironically interesting too, because the Brickells were one of the first businesses and business people in— before Miami was born, the Brickells were actually in Miami 25 years before 1896. They came here in 1871, so they were here, you know, long before Miami was actually born.

Wow. So how did you— so, so what happened? Because I've known you for a long time, and all of a sudden I started to, you know, read some of the things and hear what you were doing. So what turned you on to to this area and then Mary Brickell?

Well, 25 years ago, I was involved in the Centennial of Miami. This summer will be the 125th anniversary. During the Centennial, I published a newsletter that was called The Miamian, which is actually a publication that was around in 1913. So I revamped it for the Centennial and started publishing articles on a weekly basis. You can imagine it's a lot of work to keep a weekly newsletter out just for that one year. And in it, I had a really good friend who was a very big advocate for the Brickells, actually was the first lady, the first person historian, Carmen Petzoulas, who found the first photo of Mary. See, the Brickells were mysterious, quiet, not so socially intact as or involved as other people, so a lot of the times they've been forgotten just because there was no photo, and there was no photo of Mary for many, many years. And only 4 of them from William Brickell. So in total, this Siano family of Miami only has 7 photos. You can imagine, we take 7 photos before breakfast sometimes, you know. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. During the centennial, I realized that wholeheartedly parts of the process to celebrate the city was ignoring fully the impact and role that the Brickells had in birthing Miami. Now, even though we have a lot more information now, 25 years ago I couldn't make the case or write the book I did today 25 years ago, but we had a hunch, a really good hunch. One of them was because of a pioneer woman named Rosabelle Peacock who told Carmen Pensula, you know, this neighborhood, it was started by Mary Brickell, and she hasn't gotten a lot of recognition that the other mother of Miami, Julia Tuttle, gets. And the other thing that happened was that, that we basically didn't know a lot of the things we know today. And that has— some of it has happened organically, and some of it happened with people working very hard to dig up things. And some of it has happened just on the peripheral vision of experiencing my journey over the 25 years with the Brickell subject matter that just doesn't seem to go away. This is one of these things, it's going to get a little hooky now, okay? In 3, 2, 1. I think the brickles are actually, uh, pushing me towards this, you know, write our story, please. There's just too many moments in the last 10 years that have led me to believe this can't be happening just on my efforts alone. This has to be a kind of an otherworldly, uh, push. And it's been fascinating. I felt like I've gone back to college and gotten a master's degree in just the story of the origin of Miami. At first, I was just in it to recognize Mary Brickell more, but I actually became an expert in the intricacies and the complexity that Miami is born. But that is not what you'll find on the internet or on Wikipedia or in an encyclopedia. You will find that Julia Tuttle sent a beautiful bouquet of orange blossoms to Henry Flagler to prove to him after the Christmas freeze of 1894 and the February freeze of 1895 that Miami had been spared by the frost. And thus magically he looked at these orange blossoms and he said, you know what, this is— I should move down there. And he moved his railroad down to Miami. That is a beautiful story. It's very romantic. There's some elements that are very lightly true, but it's really far more complex than that, including Henry Flagler's right-hand man, who actually, on November 20th, 1920, blows the whole story out of the water by saying, 'It was I that brought tree clippings of all kinds to Flagler in a box in wet damp cloth.' And the thing that never gets covered, Adrienne, is comma, 'and along with a contract from the Brickells and Julia Tuttle.' I brought them to Flagler. So, you know, that whole contract part gets left out. Even if, let's say, we accept the orange blossom, we keep forgetting that there were contracts, there were business issues. Flagler was just not going to move his empire for a bouquet of flowers. He was interested in land, millions and millions of acres of it. And even if you remove Julia and Mary out of the equation, You still have the state of Florida he had to deal with. He was promised to be given certain amount of acres per land every time he moved the railroads south down the state, including Daytona, including West Palm Beach. That was Flagler's doing, opening up those areas. But not all the land in Florida, as you can imagine, was high and dry. And so he is being given stuff all way ahead of even places that he even got to. And the other funny thing about the story is, you know, Julia is said to send these bouquets to lure him down to West Palm Beach, but now we know he already owned land kissing distance of North Miami. He didn't have to be lured. He was already down here in ownership of some of these lands. So you have a very complicated chess game that was happening. Julia was very important, I will say, about keeping the fire stoked, writing letters, copious letters to Flagler. Keeping him interested and certainly giving him an important 100 acres of land where he would put his hotel, the Royal Palm. But all the land in between West Palm and Miami was not Julia's, and it wasn't even Brickell's, although some of it was Brickell's in Fort Lauderdale. That's another case in point. You had to deal with the Brickells just to get to Miami. So again, once again, you're seeing a pattern that the Brickells have been marginalized so much so that it's grossly misunderstood as how the real Miami was born. But that's the gist of the story, and that's what I'm trying to fix and work on and elaborate that, you know, we have two women to be proud of, and what's wrong with that? I think that there's a, a space for a co-mother status. Some people are a little bit not so comfortable with that, but I think why not? Why not have two women? And I'll tell you why that's important later, but I'll let you—

uh, well, no, how does that happen? How does that happen? That, that you could just, you know, kind of— I don't understand it. So how did Mary get put aside?

Okay, so, so Mary got put aside for a lot of different reasons. Number one, William Brickell, her husband, had a fallout with Henry Flagler over a contractual issue of building the bridge across the Miami River. So what— number one, you have to understand that Brickell had a fallout with the most powerful man in Florida. That powerful man in Florida ran everything, including the early newspapers in Miami. So you can imagine, if you have a feud with Flagler, you're not going to get fair, uh, representation. Number 2, uh, William Brickell had a fallout with Julia Tuttle's father. So he has a fallout with the father of the mother of Miami. You have an issue with the Brickells holding on to their lands far longer than people were comfortable with. So thereby looking at it like, oh, they're holding back progress. But that was not the case. Their lands were actually held back in terms of their viability because Flagler didn't build the bridge in time before he got to Miami, which he was contractually obligated to do. You have the issue that the Brickells had the post office in Miami in the early days, and you had to row across the river to get your mail. They didn't like that. The community didn't like that. The first thing they did after they slam the gavel down that Miami was born on July 28, 1896, is the first order of business is what to do with the post office. So people are ticked that the Brickells were in charge of the post office. So you have, you know, I'm stacking the deck. As you can see, there was a lot of things going against the Brickells that pushed them aside. And then you have the romanticized version of just an easier tale to tell, because let's face it, we deal in South Florida with the sun, fun, and sand. We don't want complexity. We just want you to have a good time and we want to romance that. And so in the 1920s and '30s, the story of the birth of Miami was sold as this romantic moment that Julius sent this bouquet of flowers, not thinking that you're sending bouquet of flagellars to one of the shrewdest businessmen on the planet. You know, this was Rockefeller's partner. This is a guy who was taking the task over monopoly issues. This is not a guy who's going to roll over for a bouquet of flowers, folks. You know, uh, this was a very contrived deal that was very specific on getting land. And we also know that we believe that Flagler was already looking at further south of Key West, uh, of Miami, making the land south of any river meet, i.e., Fort Lauderdale, which Brickell's owned, Miami on the south side they owned. So really, Flagler is very important, the Brickells were, because he had to go further than just Miami. So you're starting to see the negotiation leverage points are tipped more in the Brickells' favor. Not to mention Brickells actually signed a contract with Flagler 4 months before Julia signs hers. And that's because, A, the Brickells had their act together with all their land deeds were all very specific. Julia had a little bit of a mess with some Spanish land grants that she had, and the title of the lands weren't clear. But More importantly, that Flagler needed to get out of West Palm, which the Brickells had 125 sneaky acres in West Palm, so they're hitting him in West Palm. They had to get across Fort Lauderdale, back then known as the New River, so you couldn't get to Miami without dealing with the Brickells. And then in Miami, you had land on both sides of the river, mainly on the south side, that the Brickells had. You also have the issue that is not, uh, cannot be debated, is that Julia did include Mary in on the deal? Well, why did she include Mary in on the deal? You know, so you have all these, these questions you got to ask. But in the end, you cannot ignore a family that has that much ink on paperwork, including the birth certificate, which is still kind of highly debated on which is the birth certificate. I believe it's the one where everybody sits around the table and signs it, which is the birth certificate of Miami, which shows that half the city's on the north bank, half the city's on the south bank. Mary Brickell, William Brickell, Julia Tuttle, and James Ingram signed that document. So the others are trying to say that, other historians try to say that the document is a loan document that Julia signed with Flagler just about her land, but that's inconsistent with the actual boundaries of the city. In fact, on the one that's signed by all four people, all four entities, it actually says the boundaries, this is a city of Miami, etc. So to me, that's, that's a— and Mary is the first line signator. You can't miss her. But yeah, history is basically—

I just want to— so, so just so everyone understands, Caesar also understands and plays Henry Flagler, right? So, yes. So, okay, so, and then, so you're a historian knowing everything about Henry, and is that where you're also learning more about Mary?

Absolutely. In fact, um, now I know I'm not the top, top expert on Henry, but I have played Henry and I have studied him, and I've been in positions where sometimes I do slip into like Henry mode in my mind thinking about moments like that. But yes, I, in doing so, I have learned about who he had to deal with, and I have actually read letters pertaining, you know, there's a great letter that Mary Brickell wrote in 1921, a year before her death, a couple of months before her death, and she said, for years I've tried to endeavor upon Mr. Flagler about widening the narrow streets of Miami, etc., etc. And you sense that Mary took him to task a couple times, would call him out and say, hey, why are you doing this? There's a better way to design a city. There's a better way to to, to, to make, you know, a city more beautiful. Mary, in my opinion, was much more motherly in terms of her way of designing things. You also have the fact that Fort Lauderdale, and this is not up for debate, is a city that was birthed by Mary because Flagler would have this relationship with landowners where they just gave him the right-of-way and were able to sell their lands to him so he can move to Miami. They would ask, well, Flagler, I'll sell this to you, but you have to build a station. And Flagler would say, oh, of course I'll build a station, no problem. But that doesn't mean he would stop the train at the town. Oh, Mary was one of the few people that got him to literally sign that you will not only stop the train, you will set up a plotted map city in this area, and you would call it Fort Lauderdale eventually. But the point is she held him to his kind of squirrely ways, you know, one of the few people that got him to stop the train in Fort Lauderdale around her lands. So she's the undisputed mother of Fort Lauderdale, and I believe right now she's still the disputed co-mother of Miami, but I believe that's coming around the corner. People are starting to— the newspapers have started to call her co-mother, but still when you go on the, you know, the Googles and the Wikipedia, you will still come across a lot of articles about Julia strictly. So that's what we're trying to kind of do, is to paint a fuller picture.

Now you can write about Mary and post it on Wikipedia, right? Or submit it for Wikipedia review.

And no, here is the tricky wicket. There was— and I actually wrote to Wikipedia as a good little historian that I am There was a Mary Brickle section on Wikipedia in the late 1990s, and it was quickly taken down. I got to Wikipedia, I got to a guy named Seamus Brown or something like that, and he wrote back to me and he said, well, it was up, we had to take it down because Wikipedia needs sources that they themselves can actually access. A lot of the stuff on the Brickle story is not yet published, is in archives. Is that— there is one book though that is by Beth Breckel, and then after my book it will be my book. Then you will have a situation where you can finally say, okay, you can cite this source. There's a couple of articles, but they kind of like primary source data that's in some university. So that process is going to start after my book, but it is a long process, and it's kind of hampered with the fact there's not a lot of stuff published on Mary and a ton on Julia.

Okay, so let's talk about your research. So this is so interesting, and I love the fact that you're like the second author, so, so you're paving a path. And thank you, because as a woman, it's so lovely to hear how strong we were from the start, right? Like, you know, I think that somehow we got, you know, walked on, but to know that Mary Brickell— so before I hear your research, are there Are there any statues? Was I reading that you were looking at some statues, or are they planning on building a statue for—

there is a statue to Julia Tuttle, and there's a statue of Mary Brickell, actually. Actually, Mary Brickell's on two different, uh, a statue and a bas-relief on the side of a bridge. So there are two images of Mary. Sadly, those images of Mary, one is a bust and one is a— on the side of a bridge, a bas-relief. Sculpture. They're not of Mary herself. We thought years ago there was a photograph that was attributed to Mary. We now know is probably Mary's mother. But this happens at time to time in research, but it is attributed to Mary. So there is a statue. There isn't— it's not the actual, we know, likeness. We don't, we don't believe anymore that it's Mary, her actual likeness. But, but there is a beautiful big statue to Julia Tuttle and a cross all over it and beside it and on the writing on it, and it's all about the mother of Miami. Not mentioning really Mary Brickell at all. But, you know, you brought up a good point. You know, when women were there at the start, these two women were doing big things at a time where women couldn't vote, at a time where poor Mary— by the way, when Brickells were mentioned, even the faint times they were mentioned, most of the credit went to William Brickell. As you know, patriarchy back then, you know, trumps the real deal who did what. So the few times that we do have Brickell recognition, it's to William, not Mary. But we do now know that William put everything in Mary's name, so the land was actually in a— technically, in a court of law, it was Mary's land. William by marriage, but, but on— in ink, it's Mary's land. And that's pretty cool because Mary now believe— we believe in 1871— I mean, 1874, when she owns 2,507.83 acres of land is one of the largest landowners in the state of Florida and one of the largest female landowners in the United States. But by 1896, she gobbles up another 4,000 acres. She's in excess of 6,000 acres of land in 1896 before the train gets there. Can you imagine 6,000 acres of land today, of prime land in Miami?

That's before the train. What about before air conditioning?

Insanity, the amount of land. And one of the questions that I ask in my book is Well, yes, the Prickles were private. Yes, they were quiet. Yeah, they weren't socially out there. But what do you think somebody's doing with 6,000 acres of land at a time it took 2 days to round up 7 people and count them? Listen, it's very simple. They were putting an elaborate hook and playing an elaborate chess game at the end of a peninsula. They were there to build a city, period. Uh, whether they said so or not They weren't as vocal as Julia. They didn't write as many letters as Julia, but they were there not messing around. They were not there to build a bigger squash court in their backyard.

This is intense. I want to hear about— so the research, and of course I'm sure that everyone watching wants to know about who in the Brickell family is still alive. So great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, tell us, tell us, tell us.

So, um, so I've now been at every location the Brickells have lived except for Mary's 3 years in England. But I've been to their home site address in Cleveland, Ohio. I've been to the diggings where William went to in California for the 1849 Gold Rush. I've been to Australia where they actually met. I've been all over Miami, of course. And, and the research is not only in Florida, but they're in institutions all over. But in Florida, we have about 7 different Brickell collections, about 5 of which are in the special collections of the Stephen and Dorothea Green Library at FIU, the Green Library. But they're as far away as Australia. There's a treasure trove of stuff in Albury Historical Museum and Library in Albury in the center of Australia. Um, it's, it's endless. In fact, I even claim on many occasions in my book I have not read everything about the Brickles. It is impossible. They have kicked up so much dust that it would take many lifetimes to read everything about the Brickles. What I've done is gathered enough evidence, finite evidence, and making my case about the origin story of Miami and their role in it. But to do a book on the Brickles would take several historians, many, many, many lifetimes. It's that voluminous. It is really thorough. Now, left in the family during my research, there was a writer named Beth Brickell— not Brickell, Brickell. Apparently, from what she tells it, the Brickells of England went to France. Some went to France and they pronounced it Brickell. She wrote a book on the Brickells, and she got me in touch with one actually two of the remaining Brickells, one of which I've met. One is called Bea Brickell. She's a former lawyer from Washington, D.C. who lives in Beaufort, South Carolina, and her brother Jamie Brickell, who lives in Punta Gorda and Maryland as well. So I've been in touch with Bea a lot more, but Jamie's been just as nice as, as Punch, you know, really sharing information. But Bea is the one I've gotten to know really well. We become fast friends, and during the pandemic, uh, unbeknownst to me, I was just going to visit for 3 or 4 days. She really wanted to get away, had not been out, you know, out of town, and she wanted to get on a long road trip. Um, and she— but she didn't want to have her dog suffer through hundreds of miles. And so I said, listen, normally I'd say— and you know this, Adrian— my calendar is booked, but during the pandemic is not. So I'll take care of your dog in your house. And I stayed for 31 days, and I got to rifle through all of the amazing collection that she's now donated to FIU. And it gave me a time to realize that, wait a second, this doesn't just happen. Here I am amongst the sea of Brickell. Why, why am I, why am I having this experience? And I realized that the reason I'm having it is that Mary Brickell probably is telling me, this is, this is the moment. I know, Caesar, you've been trying to wait. And I've said famously for years, this is going to be my last book. Because there's so much still out there to be, you know, gathered that you'll never get to it all. And that's true, I'll never get to it, and it never will end. So why not do a book about a particular subject that I'm starting to know very well? And that is why the Brickles have been marginalized and why they need to be remembered. So I, I was in a— I was in 7th heaven with actual documents, not just like copies or on microfilm. No, I was with— I could even smell them, you You know, it was incredible. It was a moment. It was a moment.

You know what's interesting, Caesar? This is— so for those that are younger than us, they would think, well, what's the big deal? Just Google everything you need to know. But this— there's like, you are going to now write the book, and yes, yes, in 3 years when the book is in and it's all saturated, then you can Google and you'll get Caesar's information. And you'll see what Caesar— and probably will help to push other historians that have been thinking about it to say, oh my gosh, let's do it. So that's beautiful. So forging the way, even though there's maybe one or two before you. This is so fantastic to talk to you and know that you are really— I mean, you're gonna live on too, Caesar.

I love it. I hope.

Oh, and you have a beautiful family. You will. No, this is fantastic because you are, you are really building the foundation for Google, for like these search engines. I say Google, but you know what I mean, any search engine. You're really putting her in a location where others can really find it, interest, and, and understand. So I am so excited. And what are the next steps now?

You definitely mentioned that because I have a mantra and a chapter of the book called Finding Your Mary. And Finding Your Mary is extra deep, especially after last year, going through all the moments where we realized that, whoa, the history we thought was a certain way— and you can, i.e., any history you need there— um, is not necessarily accurate. It hasn't been told or has been told to us in a different skewed way. And so Finding Your Mary is about questioning whether these things are really true. And the Googles and the Siris and the, and the Wikipedias are only as good as the information that's already been pre-biased. Sometimes, sometimes, not all the time, pre-biased to be presented. And so it does take a lot of time. I'm very happy to say that Beth Bruckell's book and, and my articles over the years, uh, do have an impact. And when you type in even Julia Tuttle today, if you go further south enough, you will bump into the WLRM piece that says, could Mary Brickell be a mother of Miami too? You will bump into Beth Brickell's book that in the title says, mother of Fort Lauderdale and Miami, founders of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, the Brickells. So, you know, you can now see it, but it is a slow process. It's a mountain of stuff. Sometimes history goes too far or the retelling of a romantic tale. You know, you remember, you remember the tale is the orange blossom. Well, some websites have Julia Tuttle as an orange grove farmer. Well, she, you know, took on some lands from her father who had some orange trees and orange grove, but that's a big leap to say that she was an orange grove farmer. She was not. She was a developer, you know, she was a businesswoman, etc. But, but, you know, you have sometimes Julia Tuttle discovered Biscayne Bay, which is laughable because that's She wasn't around in 1513. So, you know, you have to be careful. It's a slippery slope when these great romantic stories start taking off. Other people pick it up and they sometimes oversimplify them even further. So you have to almost get back to— you almost have to have a clean, you know, like self-cleaning ovens. You know, every occasionally you got to just get back to the beginning or you start a fire. I mean, you got to clean the oven of old history. And see what's really right and, and see what needs to be accurately portrayed. And that's, that's kind of what we're trying to do.

You know, Caesar, I really see once you write this book, I could see you in a couple years really helping other up-and-coming historians understand the process of writing a book and what that looks like, because I, I'm curious now too what that could look like. And then, so I, I'm curious, so how many Brickles that I love. I— so Caesar and I are friends, so I got to follow Caesar. I have said, oh, I'm heading up to Connecticut, maybe I'll go to Beaufort on the way back because, oh, and Charlie Foss runs a hotel over there, so, um, so I could stay at his hotel. But I'm just wondering, I saw all your pictures and they're so beautiful. How many brickles did you find that are actually related to Mary? Is there— can you put a number on that?

Yes, I can put a number of 5. I've only met one of the 5, but there is, uh, Bea Brickle, then her brother Jamie, and Jamie has 3 daughters. So there's definitely, uh, you know, and Jamie's wife. But so basically there's 5 or 6 Brickles left. Yeah, not too many, not too many.

Is that normal? Is that kind of— is that happening?

Brickles a couple years ago with the loss of Butch Brickle and Marge Brickle, which I did get to know very little, not too much. At first, there was a lot of Brickells. There was actually 7 Brickell children, 6 that made it into adulthood, but all of the daughters, none of them married. So on the female side, we don't have a lot of family lineage going on from that point on. And on the male side, we just didn't have a lot of Brickells sired on and on. So there's only 5 in my count. Wow. Brickells left.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, wait, how about all the Brickells that have the name Brickell?

Well, there's a lot more history. Yeah, there's a lot more than that. Um, but the particular Brickells we're talking about with, uh, with Mary and William that I know of— now I bumped into Bulmers, Mary's maiden name Bulmers. I've actually met a Bulmer in Australia, so there's still some Bulmers in Australia. From Mary's side. But as far as a Brickell, pronounced Brickell, and from William Brickell's lineage, 5 is basically what I know.

Well, that's interesting. Anyone else find that interesting? By the way, if you have any questions, put them in the, in the comments. I think I could see that, just, just in case. So Caesar, so the next steps now. So you've been doing, and you've been researching. So when you went to Australia, you went, this was one of the reasons why?

Yeah, it was the reason I went to Australia.

Oh, you're mentioning that, but I guess I didn't put—

yeah, it's its own story. But very quickly, I was coming back from Hong Kong with my family and we had a 2-hour layover in Dallas to get back to Miami. And for some reason, American Airlines wanted to bump 5 people. You know, sometimes they have last-minute reservations and they get a lot more money than us who travel way ahead. So they wanted to bump 5 people, but no one was taking it at $300 level, the $500 level. And eventually it came. I got an $880 voucher just for waiting 2 more hours to get to Miami. Then I found out the voucher was for anywhere in the world. I still didn't put 2 and 2 together and said, I'm going to go to Australia. But at FIU, a couple days later, I was asked to film a scene for a documentary looking through my historical documents. And just by chance, Vicky Silvera, the director there, pulled out a couple boxes. It could have been any boxes that she pulled out of mine, but she pulled out key boxes that one of them had an article that I hadn't even remembered I read, which was called The Brickles in Australia, William Brickell in Australia. And I took it home with me, and that night I was just like, wow, I didn't realize this. And then the very next day, I read an article that a friend of mine wrote about the history between Australia and the United States, and I called him up and I said, do you know that there's a Miami connection? He goes, 'A Miami what connection?' I said, 'The Brickells were in Australia and Mary's from Australia.' He couldn't believe it. Ended up that Don Slesnick, the man I'm talking about, is the honorary consul chair of the honor— of the, the consulate in Miami of Australia. So one thing led to another, and it just looked like the, the path had been set before me that you are going to Australia. And it was one of the most incredible trips of my life. I was in situations where people were debating in an archive thousands of miles away whether there was a photo of William Brickell's hotel or not in Australia. It was odd. For many years there'd been nobody debating anything, uh, you know, championing the Brickells, and here was like 7 or 8 octogenarians, you know, historians battling out that I remember there was a picture but it was blurry, it's got to be here somewhere, and it was incredible. That was one of many moments on that trip that is like, wow, this can't just be happening organically or by chance. There's something here. And it's gotten even bigger than that. In the United States, we found out that Houston— I love that adage, Houston, we have a problem, you know, or Houston, the eagle has landed. Well, Houston is knocking loud on Miami's door right now saying, Miami, Houston is your problem now. Now, by that I mean Houston's about to bestow the moniker of Mother of Houston to a lady that has been forgotten to time. If they do that and embrace it, Miami will no longer be, at least on Wikipedia and other places and thousands of other articles, the only major city founded by a woman. Now Houston will have to share that designation with Miami. You see, so learning about our history, seeing that Mary had more of an impact than we thought, embracing a co-mother status would put Miami back on top as the only major city founded by two women. But there are other cities like Chicago that have now gone a long way to recognize a Haitian immigrant named Oh gosh, I'm just drawing a blank now. Du Sablé. He had an impact in the founding of Chicago and Cleveland. There was a General Cleveland, not spelled C-L-E-V, C-L-E-A-V. He had the city named after him. Turns out he was only there to, to mark it out and he left. He never came back.

Oh wow.

You have origin stories in other cities, which is why we say Finding your Mary is to question those origin stories, but with it you'll find a deeper, more enriching story.

Basically, it sounds amazing. So, so why are a lot of schools not teaching history?

Well, glad you said that. Let me answer that in a two-part issue. Because there's so little on Mary Brickell in Miami and so much on Julia. I'm very, very blessed to say, and for the first time publicly on your show, that an angel has come to us by the form of David Schoenfeld, who stepped up to the bat and sponsored a teacher's edition of my book to go to every 4th grade teacher in Dade County. I kid you not, Adrian. So we can debate this till we're all blue. We're adults, but but if we don't get to the kids, we're just whistling Dixie and not— we're spinning our wheels. We're just arguing, you know. Um, and I purposely removed the politics away from the teacher's edition to the teachers because I just want them to learn about Mary. I just want Mary to at least have, um— I'm getting goosebumps right now— a moment to be recognized by what she did. And a little bit about the issue that she's not alone, you know, that Julia Tuttle was not the alone, and there's two women. But teachers don't have a huge arsenal. They are, they are, you know, it is a curriculum, but, you know, there's several different curriculum numbers that they have to follow of local history and state history, but they don't always are given the right tools, especially in this day when you lean on the electronic way to get to information. And in this case, you're going to get to the wrong or not as equally balanced information. So I'm very happy that, um, well, that's harder to say, you know, why we don't teach history. There's some places that feel that history is, uh, don't mess with it. I just came from a lunch today where, uh, the mother of a good friend of mine had a situation where One of her nephews was at a school and they asked a question, and the question that the student asked is, well, why don't we go a step further and, and get into the whys this is in coverage? Oh, we don't want to do that. Let's not go that far. So that's a problem. Why, you know, snip off the curiosity of, of kids, um, from going further? And we really should go further. We shouldn't just say, how did it happen? But are we sure that it happened that way? And are we sure we're not leaving anybody out? Because we are in a situation not too long ago that we were leaving people out, and leaving people out has impacts eventually in our way of treating other people. You know, we need to really be open to the full picture. If not, we're just going to have more and more misunderstandings of many kinds.

I love that. And I love the fact, Cesar, that all the little girls that are going to be reading this in the 4th grade and just will realize that they could do something, that they still can find something and they could become a book. So, all right. So I like— I am history— school's not— it never really came so easy. I also have a neurodivergent mind. I need to learn a different way.

I was that way long ago, but go ahead.

No, that makes sense because I'm thinking to myself, maybe that is why when you teach, you tend to teach by a skit. And so when I watched you do Flagler, Mr. Flagler, that helps me to really learn more about Mr. Flagler. So do you see soon enough that there will be a fun little play or a skit regarding—

Wow, wow, you have put your finger on something really funny and fascinating. And within the last week, A very good friend of mine, becoming a much better friend of mine, but now a very good friend of mine, came up with this idea. My dear friend Kimberly Greene came up with the idea, but why don't we come up with a musical on Mary Brooks? Yes, yes, I was both stunned and flattered, of course, and just like Wait, Kimberly, I thought I was here to tell you all about Mary. Now you're, you're so excited, you're running with the musical. But, um, sure, I mean, I think a better way to do all of this is to get it into a way that, uh, can be digested easier. So there is talk, uh, definitely. I love that. Talk about, uh, a musical maybe one day. Um, and by the way, uh You know, women are so important. We have now this year, for the first time since 1836, I believe Dade County is 1836, could be 1838. I'm not an expert on the birth of Dade County, just in Miami. But we have the first female Dade County mayor ever in our history.

Oh, oh, and who is that?

Daniela Cava, who is not only the one— she came onto the scene listen to me. We had a 20-minute conversation. And halfway in the conversation, I realized, wait a second, she's just not listening to just listen to just kind of give me, you know, an ear. She's really listening. She was asking really good questions. Soon thereafter, she had her speechwriter, Alex Phyllis, call me. And we were all of a sudden working on a speech for her State of the County speech. And this year, I think it was in February, on her State of the County speech, the highest-ranking politician, and no other politician had ever recognized Mary Brickell as a co-founding mother of Miami, than Daniela Cava. So, you know, it's amazing when you get the right people at the right time that are very open to listening. And I don't want to say she just listened to me. She had Alex do some background work stuff I sent her to check it out. You know, they definitely looked into it and they agree. I mean, it's hard, hard to not see the— a lot of things have come to light in 25 years. Yeah, so we, you know, we— and I'm flattered that she, she met me the other day and held up my book. And she's—

yeah, really, we held up which book?

Both books, actually. She's a big fan of the Robert Is Here book, and she held up a mock-up of the Mary Herkel book.

I would see the mock-up. So wait, so now I love Kimberly's idea because if you imagine all the kids not only getting the book, but if there was a, like, a tour group that went around and then all, like, what a great field trip to go in and read the book first and then watch the play. But that's how I learned. That would be for me at that age to really, to be able to put it all together. And what that would do is have that be something that I would remember for the rest of my life. And that it wouldn't just be a book and then maybe I would forget. The play would reinforce it and allow me. So I would like to play a role, and I would like to play Mary's mom, if that's okay.

And sign you up.

And hello, this is my daughter Mary. So I could do—

I could sing, you know, a little couple of hours away from being, uh, into fruition, but it is an idea that was birthed last week, and, um, I, I love it. I told her I was kind of stunned, but I said, yeah, I, I think that would be awesome, you know.

I love that you're doing all this.

So we're excited. We're— the book is coming out, um, it's out now, uh, in audio form. I read the whole book on audio. Uh, it'll be there, it'll be a PDF very soon. A PDF form will be available, but on the 28th of July, on the 125th anniversary of Miami, the book will formally come out. And I'm excited to get the word out there, and I'm just pleased as punch the 4th grade teachers will have a version of the book that they can teach. So it's happening.

I have a couple more questions.

Yeah, absolutely.

I hear a little echo, so I'm sorry about that. Is that coming from my end?

I don't know.

Caesar?

Yes.

Mount Dora, does that have anything to do with Mary Brickell?

No. But it has something to do with the Mary Brickell book.

Okay.

A very good friend of mine, Doug Thompson, has a lovely apartment that he seldom uses. And during the pandemic, I felt it was important to get away from busy Miami, even though it was pandemic Miami. But I wrote most of the book there. I had enough quiet time. When I'm in Miami, enough people know I'm in Miami, I can be hired out for jobs, this and that and the other. So I, I definitely wrote a lot of it, but I did something else very important in Mount Dora. Mount Dora is the spot that I chose an editor, Rebecca Pilling Knowles, who edited the book. Good friend of mine from my days at Nature's Classroom. But I also— Adrienne Barker, just so you know— forward her all the chapters that I wrote on your father and mother's future book. So I believe that she's definitely going to be the one to edit that book. So I told her, listen, sometime next year we're gonna get to work on this. I want you to have the chapters right now to hold on to. So the chapters are no longer just in my hands, but they're all the way up in Paxton, Massachusetts, in the very adept hands of Rebecca. Rebecca, I just could not have done this book in the time frame I did it without the trust of me writing her keeping my voice but taking where I was going certain times and hitting a home run with it. She really, um, I think she's the one for your, your parents' book. Many people don't know, but I've been— I, I was first met Adrian, uh, many moons ago through a wonderful friend of mine, Heather Nigro, who put us together. And we did start work, and we were going to finish work one day on that book. I think I've written already 60 or 70,000 words on your parents.

Wow, wow.

Herb and Gloria Barker were just amazing, amazing, astute business people, HR people before the term HR was there. They were good judge of character, and they were just characters themselves. Oh, Mary's boring compared to, you know, well, I mean, I'm not saying she's that boring, but I mean, your father and mother just were— I always felt like I was at the circus there, you know. It was great. It was just— the barkers were barking just like at the circus.

My dad would— his eyes would light up. Adrian Caesar's coming over. Heather's coming over. I hope she brings a dog. He— and I'm so glad because as, as time has passed and it's already been 2 years, I realize it just feels like they're gone. And then it makes me— I get— I do get a little depressed, like just the fact that we could be here on earth and make so many just— we could add to the quality of life for so many people and, and just change different things. And then we pass away and that's it. And so I'm so glad because that book— and it made my parents so happy. My dad was so happy to share his stories. And so I love that. So now I— so your book is finished? Like, this is amazing. Now, is this self-published or you have a—

yeah, I'm publishing— no, I'm self-publishing this book, but I've had incredible help by people who have purchased the book, people who have donated, people who are about to purchase a huge amount of crates very, very— and like literally within days. Um, uh, I created a crate commemorative crate edition series so that people can have items for the 125th anniversary of Miami that are real members.

I love that. Yeah, smart branding. So a certain amount of books can be— oh, you should— did you do a crowdfunding for that?

No, I felt— and I don't have to. I think I actually now have just enough to do the final print of the book in selling of the crates. So the crates are commemorative but also an addition to the fundraising tool to raise money to print the book. Although I've also had help from David for the teacher's edition, which I never envisioned in the first place, so it's great. So we have 700 books I never even thought about originally. But the crates have been going pretty briskly now. We had 14 sell slow, and then it looks like very soon I'll be able to let you know about 58 of them that are about to be purchased, possibly to spread all around Dade County. Again, I hesitate— we're almost there, but they are meant to share the history of Miami and to mimic the Brickell story, because inside the The book— the crate are 3 books in the Brickell's and 2 reports on the Brickell's. So 5 major documents on the Brickell's, including a signed check of the George Brickell, $125 signed checks of from one of the Brickell's, uh, a 1924, uh, plat map of Miami, uh, swizzle sticks from Miami, uh, hotel cutlery, uh, real items from Miami's past. So you have a a, what I call an open box of anniversaries. We usually dig something in the ground. Why am I drawing a blank?

Oh, a time capsule.

A time capsule. So there's an open time capsule that you can have to enjoy these things, but you can also support this, this journey. I love— I'm gonna take it on my—

give me that information so I could put that in the post.

Yeah, all the— everything you can find is all on sofloweird.com.

So tell me about that website. Is that your website?

No, no, that's a good friend of mine, Mia Lorenzo, and her daughter Michelle. Amazing. Mia is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who's just done amazing, and a producer who's done work over the years. And she focuses this site on the, on the awesome, interesting, and weird parts of Florida. So a lot of serious and not so serious articles on Florida. But I felt that I've always wanted to work with me. And so everything about this project is on there at sofloweird.com, S-O-F-L-O-W-E-I-R-D.com. And when you go in there, you'll see the very big orange link to Orange Blossom 2.0, which is the name of my book, but also now it's looking the name of the kind of a movement. People are really enjoying it more as a, you know, the movement of changing things, hopefully. So you can find all that about it there. And what I meant to say on, on, on your parents' book, it may take me a lot of years. And, you know, as you know, The Brick of One took me 25 years to finally do, but we'll get that book written. And it is also 3/4 of the way already written. So it's just every book has its journey and its path, and it's, it's, it'll happen one day. So I'll be very excited, hopefully sometime late next year, to say and tell people about all about Gloria and Herb Barker.

You're so sweet. Okay, one more question, one more. So do you have enough in the photos of Mary to put together if you were gonna have a playmate for her costume?

Yes, actually, two of the photos, two of the three, even the third one, which is late in life, and she's just wearing kind of like a very simple house outfit or something like this. Very, very simple. But the two earlier ones are gorgeous. Let me show you one. Oh, I want to show you one. This is beautiful. This— and by the way, I love what I'm about to show you. I'm laughing at— because there were some quotes in the past that would say the reason there were no photos of Mary is that she was ugly. Well, you tell me if this beautiful Amazing, uh, photograph you see here of Mary Brickell. Look at that, she's gorgeous.

Yeah, I mean, she's very— I just don't know the time.

And she's elegant.

This is 18—

I think this is 1870s, wow, maybe late 1860s.

And that's a hat on her that she's wearing.

That's a hat she's wearing. But look at that dress, we can definitely make that one into a costume or a dress. Yes.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I asked.

This is actually one of the articles that the Miami Herald published years ago in 1996 or 1999, 1999, that reprinted my, you know, defense of Mary as a co-founding mother of Miami. I'm very happy that they—

yeah, you're so quiet. You're like such a— you're, you're so humble in what you've done in your life, and it's so amazing that you have done so much and you're so likable. Oh my gosh, right? Like everyone meets you and they like you right away. And you're aging handsomely too, let me tell you that. My mom just told me to tell you that. You're aging handsomely.

Nice.

You just look so great. I'm so proud of you. I know my mom and dad would be so proud of you. This is really, really exciting. And just to remind everyone, Robert Is Here is a great book. You just take it as a What is that?

Oh, that, that's the actual cover.

Cover.

Oh my gosh, Blossom 2.0. And it's an unusual cover, uh, co-designed, uh, with Cindy Seipp, my good friend Cindy. But the idea for the COVID came from a New Yorker magazine which was tasked to make the Mueller Report a little bit sexier. And one artist from Japan took the redacted portions of and just had, you know, say like the 19— the 2000 whatever whatever Mueller report, like in the unredacted portions. And I loved it because it really, it mimics this story that over the years has been covered up in a way. And every chapter you get to has different redactions in different formats that speak to that chapter's subject matter, but they will not be able to read the entire unredacted version until they mail back an envelope in the back of the book with their comments, and then I will send them an unredacted— and there's no way to actually— with all the unredacted portions, there's really no way to put the whole thing together until they mail me the special envelope at the back of the book. How do you like that?

Okay, so creative. That is absolutely unbelievable. The most creative, fun, and interactive Oh my gosh, that reminds me of years ago when you would mail your picture of a cat so you could get a magnet. I mean, like, that is really, really cool. So, so, Cesar, I am so excited for you. This is such a big deal. So you have your OnePage, you have your Cesar Vicara OnePager all about you, so that— because you deserve to be— there's going to be— wait, I did the podcast right now. Today is June 2nd. Of 2021. Just want to put that on record because Caesar is probably going to be booked after it comes out, and we're going to have you on all TV shows, so you need PR.

I know. Well, thank you. And, and to your listeners out there, just so you know, if you have a group or if you have a strange and cool dinner party you want me to just show up to anywhere in the United States, I would like to to take this on the road and I will be doing like we're— like we did the research with the FIU honors students in Houston and Chicago and in Cleveland. We believe there is a glitch in a lot of origin stories in America, in towns and cities. So if we go to your city, I'll be prepared to do some research ahead of time and find out who's missing, who needs to be recognized a little more. Maybe not. I'm not saying that they're in all— every city. But, um, but I believe that I would— so if you have any group at all that is interested in a great story and how to find your own Mary, even if you're listening in another state, does not have to be in Florida. If you're in Florida, fine, but I, I'd like to take this on the road and share with you. Um, and remember, it's a 248-page book. We only covered a very finite, uh, detail, uh, of some arguments in the book, but I think you'll enjoy it. It's also my journey over the past 25 years of dealing with this story. And sometimes the story of Mary Brickell is the story of the people handling the story, and that itself is another story.

Oh my gosh, I love it.

One of the things I've always known is that handling the Brickell story is like handling a hot potato or a stick of dynamite. It always gets a little bit uncomfortable in certain circles. So It's got its intrigue. It's, it's been a journey to get to this moment for many people, not just me. And it's, it's, so it's the story of not just me, it's a lot of different people that, that done a lot of important work.

I am so honored to call you a friend, Cesar. I am so glad. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on here and sharing the story. I need your updated bio so I could get that information. And however I can help, I would love to practice my PR skills on you at no charge. Charge, of course.

So you're helping already, and whatever you can do to spread the word is great.

I would love it.

I would love it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's an honor. An honor.

You're an honor. I'm— let's have a great, uh, trip up north. If that— and are you doing researching? Are you relaxing?

I'm in Maine up here, uh, overseeing the printing of the book and also Lindsay Senecal, who's been amazing ordering all sorts of things that we need to produce this book. There's a version of this book that will be produced like a piece of artwork. I don't want to reveal all the things, but she's been amazing at doing all that. Uh, catching up with old friends. I mean, uh, but basically today I, I sent in the check to start the, uh, that David gave me, uh, David Schoenfeld, to start the teacher's edition. The teacher's edition right now as we speak is being I can't hear it because I'm a couple miles away, but it's being printed right now.

Oh my gosh, so excited, so excited. Caesar, have a great trip. Be safe. Come back to South Florida, and I can't wait to see you. I will put everything on the writing when I do this. And thank you everyone for joining us. I know it was long, but it was awesome. This was just amazing. I love you, Caesar.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye, Adrian.

Thank you, Caesar. Wow.