Candy Keller-Raber, a longtime member of the South Lake County Historical Society and its Board of Directors was the featured presenter at the Society’s October meeting. Candy, a retired teacher, has been using her new-found free time to transfer old videotapes of Historical Society presentations to DVDs. During the Society’s October meeting, Candy shared a fascinating presentation from 2007 given by Groveland City Councilman John Griffin and his grand-nephew, Matthew. The Griffins are Black Seminoles and proudly share information about their heritage. At the time this was taped, Matthew was a high school student but he took on responsibility for the majority of the presentation that covered historical data, displays of weapons, clothing, jewelry and much more.
The South Lake County Historical Society is dedicated to preserving the history of our area and passing along information about that history to the youth of our community, new residents and visitors from all over our state, country and the world. This is primarily accomplished through maintaining Clermont’s Historic Village which is located at 490 West Ave. not far from the historic shopping district on Montrose Street. The Village is open every Friday from 1 pm to 3 pm and every Saturday & Sunday from 1 pm to 4 pm. Admission to the Village is free but a donation of $2.00 per guest is requested.
If you are interested in history in general or the history of Lake County in particular, contact the South Lake County Historical Society by going to our website, ClermontVillage.org; by calling our manager, Roxanne Brown, at 352-432-3496 or by attending our membership meetings which are held on the second Monday of the month at 7 pm in the Train Depot in the Historic Village. The next meeting will be November 12th. After touring the Village, please like us on Facebook or mention us on Yelp.
