Descendant of William B Barwick 1755 - 1807 Revolutionary Soldier Elizabeth Phillips 1760 - 1820

Known as J.S. to his family and friends, he was a large man with a large heart. He lost his left eye when he was in elementary school. He was cutting a piece of stray rubber from one of his tennis shoes when the knife slipped and gouged directly into his eye. In his younger days, he used an artificial eye but later in life opted for just a dark glass lens over his left eye.
He went to school in Pahokee, Florida, the closest school to where his family resided in Canal Point. During the Depression, his family moved back to Grady County, Georgia living in Cairo. He then finished high school at Cairo, playing center on their football team. He repeated his senior year, largely due to his desire to play another season of football and to be near the apple of his eye, Susie Ethel Wimberley. He was rejected from WWII service because of his lost eye and he was also a farmer at the time.
He and Susie, known to all as Ethel, bought a small farm located between Cairo and Whigham along what was old US 84 highway. He farmed with a mule. In 1944, his parents had moved back to Chosen, just outside of Belle Glade, the Lake Okeechobee region of Florida since his father was in the produce business. Times were hard on the farm life so the farm was sold and J.S. and family moved to Pahokee, Florida. He worked in the produce business helping run a bean packing house in Belle Glade. The family lived in rental housing in Pahokee (3 places) before moving to another rental home on the ridge just north of Canal Point, Florida.
By 1946, J.S. had gone to work for W.H.Vann, Inc., a farming and shipping concern. He oversaw their green been packing house which was one of the largest, if not the largest at the time. The packing house had 6 bean belts, huge machines where fresh green beans were processed for packing and shipping to northern markets, mostly by rail car.
In 1952, a new family home was purchased in Pahokee at 387 Cypress Ave. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath flat top home. Flat top housing was much the rage in South Florida at the time. J.S. eventually became the General Sales Manager of W.H. Vann, Inc. Over the years of the late fifties, the farming concern moved from fresh green bean production to sweet corn. This was caused by the innovations developed for freezing fresh beans which significantly reduced the demand for fresh green beans. Fresh sweet corn was the item in big demand during the early 1960s. W.H.Vann farmed about 1500 acres primarily located near downtown Pahokee and at Section 5, which was at Dead Man's Curve between Pahokee and Belle Glade on US 441. In the early 60s, the company signed a long term lease for the Bar D Ranch, about 3,500 acres of pastureland located just above Sand Cut, north of Canal Point. J.S. then moved into General Managership of the entire operation. He orchestrated the clearing of the land from pasture to cultivatable farm land, rich virgin muck soil. He surveyed the land, laying out drainage ditches and installing pumps to help manage water. Eventually, W. H. Vann had as much as 5000 acres of sweet corn, with two crops per year. They also had a small amount of sugar cane which came on the scene in the early 60s with the Castro regime taking control of Cuba. Over the next few years, the Vann concern gradually diverted a few hundred more acres into sugar cane production. When the Bar D lease expired in the mid 1970s, W.H.Vann decided to abandon the property and converted its remaining owned land (about 900 total acres) into sugar cane.
J.S. retired in 1985 and sold the family home, relocating to Orange Springs, Florida. He and Ethel rented a small place on Lake WimberlEy located just off Fla Hwy 21 about a mile north of the post office in Orange Springs. J.S. later years were not healthy. He had heart disease and related health problems. He died on the morning of July 6, 1990. He was sitting on the edge of his bed and just collapsed from a total heart failure.

See links below for family members.