BY LEWIS C. LONG III

The Robert M. and Louise Foote Bond Arts and Craftsman Spanish Mission Style mansion that embodied beauty and permanence (built on West New York Avenue, where St. Peter’s Church is located today), stood out among the many beautiful homes in DeLand in the late teens and 1920s. It was mostly built of Bond sandstone brick and Bond lumber from the family brick plant and lumber mill in Lake Helen.  

Simplicity is evident in every line.  The craftsman furniture was carefully matched in the woodwork so that great harmony was obtained. I can still recall Aunt Louise, aka “Bum,” saying that even the bedspreads, curtains, and window shades, etc., were made at craftsman workshops.

This house was one to be lived in by family and friends, which very much included Father Michael J. Curley, who came over to share a meal several times a week with the Bonds when they were not in North Carolina for the summer. Father Curley rode his bicycle all around DeLand to call on parishioners and friends… of whom he had many.

When Father Curley was elevated to Bishop of St. Augustine, at a convocation of bishops in Palm Beach some of the older bishops saw this young guy standing by himself. They went over to introduce themselves and asked him who he was.  When Bishop Curley introduced himself as the Bishop of St. Augustine, the older bishops thought he was a jokester; however, he was indeed not only a bishop, but the youngest bishop in the United States. Before Father Curley died, he was the Archbishop of the Diocese of Baltimore.

There are many stories of when the Bond children were growing up in DeLand and sharing backyards with the Howarth daughters — Catherine, Sarah and Mary, whose mother was Mary Stewart Howarth, the first woman to graduate from Stetson Law School. Mary Howarth later taught constitutional law there. Although Mrs. Howarth wanted all three of her daughters to be doctors, only Sarah and Mary became doctors. Catherine became a lawyer. Their house on Rich Avenue was later bought by St. Peter’s and used to accommodate St. Peter’s Catholic School.

There were stories as well about Bobby, Mary (aka “Sis”) and George Bond growing up in DeLand and life during the influenza pandemic.  When Mittie Pearson, who was the African-American family cook, expressed the fear of dying because of the flu, the youngest son George told her not to worry because he would be sure that she had the finest memorial service the world had known… or words to that effect!  

When “Sis” and George were older they were sent to boarding school in Switzerland. After being there awhile, they hosted American dance classes to the locals on Saturdays to earn enough money to run away from the school. They had actually gotten passage on a freighter; however, Judge Bert Fish intervened and helped Aunt Louise locate the vagabonds. Deciding to make the best of the situation, their mother then took them on the “Grand Tour” of Europe, including Russia.  

Later in life, Dr. George Bond, M.D., founded the first community clinic in the United States in an old schoolhouse in Bat Cave, North Carolina, where the family spent summers. George Bond became known as “Papa Topside” while a captain in the U.S. Navy because he had developed the means for deep-sea divers to overcome “the bends.” He was also in charge of the Navy’s Sea Lab off the coast of California, with astronaut Scott Carpenter being one of his aquanauts.

Oldest son Bobby died in a plane crash, and “Sis” married James Smythe (whose family had owned a house and farm which were later sold to Carl Sandburg) and moved near Hendersonville, North Carolina, Aunt Louise decided to move permanently to Bat Cave, N.C. during summers and Hendersonville, N.C. for the winters.  

Having been the daughter of a prominent family and growing up as a member of the Episcopal church in Cleveland with John D. Rockefeller as her godfather (even though he was a Baptist!), Louise then offered the mostly furnished mansion on West New York Avenue to St. Barnabas Episcopal Church for their rectory, with the stipulation that all they needed to do was pay the current taxes due for the year. 

Dr. Harry Taylor, the rector of St. Barnabas and dean of the philosophy department at Stetson University, had the sad task of informing Aunt Louise that St. Barnabas could not raise the money to pay for the taxes. So, she made the same offer to St. Peter’s Church across the street on Delaware Avenue, and St. Peter’s found two parishioners who would put up the money to pay for the taxes owed. 

Many years later in 1963, when I spent the summer working at the Volusia County Title and Abstract Company while waiting to go on active duty at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, I would read through old abstracts in the walk-in vault during my lunch hour.  

When I looked up the one about the Bond Mansion, I discovered that the Catholics had been more savvy than the Episcopalians because Johnny O’Neal, who procured real estate for Bert Fish, had gone to the State of Florida Legislature and gotten them to absolve the back taxes that were due.

During the years that followed, the rectors of St. Peter’s lived in the old mansion and weddings were performed in the living room there (if the couple were not both Catholic —  word was that some of the Catholic couples were a bit envious as that setting was preferable to that of the old wooden church).

Sometime in the 1960s, as I recall, part of the mansion was torn down. During that time, a Catholic friend of mine took me into the remaining part of the mansion to see what was left, and it was truly sad. 

Later, when Ray Linkovich was brought in to tear the rest of the mansion down, he was reported to have said that the house just did not want to come down, or words to that effect. At any rate, it took him some doing to get it demolished and the grounds cleared. 

The Stickley furniture in the mansion was given away to parishioners or sold.

Today the “new” St. Peter’s Church occupies this great piece of real estate in DeLand with a parking lot on the side.