jeff.waters@gaflnews.com



Lavelle Avery isn’t your typical gardener. She’s an 81-year-old widow who works daily in her yard and sometimes in her neighbors’ yards as well.

“She doesn’t mind working from daylight to dark,” friend and sister-in-law Evelyn Peppers said. “She stoops down like a 19-year-old kid.”

Peppers said Avery also goes up onto her roof to sweep it off and clean out the gutters.

Peppers said she values her friendship with Avery, who says they have become best friends. “We have really become like sisters,” she said. “I have adopted her as my big sister.”

Avery says she “didn’t have time to socialize” when she was working. She retired from Alltel after 37 years.

Avery met her late husband Inman at a Halloween party in 1941. “We met through a mutual friend at the party,” Avery said.

Inman Avery was sent to Camp Blanding later in the year to start his Army career. Lavelle Avery said Inman told her to not just sit at home. “He told me to go out and have fun, but to wait on him to return,” Avery said.

Avery dated one man and socialized with others but was faithful to Inman and waited on his return.

Soon after reaching Camp Blanding, Inman Avery was sent by train to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for training.

Lavelle Avery said Inman’s train went by her home — the house she lived in as a child, where she used to work in the yard. “Inman threw a note in the yard tied to a rock,” Avery said. The note said, “On way to camp Shelby, will write as soon as I get there.”

Avery said she didn’t know he was on the train and if she hadn’t been in the yard she would have never seen the note flying through the air.

Avery said they courted by mail for two-and-a-half years.

“I still have all his letters in the attic,” she said.

Inman Avery came home from the Army in October 1944. “He came home on a Thursday and we were married on a Tuesday,” Avery said.

They went to their minister’s house and said their vows. “We went to my sister’s house in Jacksonville for our honeymoon,” Avery said.

Avery said Live Oak is much different now than in those years. “It was more quiet and (now) there are a lot more people.”

She lives in a house across from Suwannee High School. She said years ago all the land where the school now sits was grazing fields for cattle. “This was considered the country,” she noted.

Avery remembers getting a job at J.G. McCrory’s. The store was known as the five and 10-cent store. The store was where a law firm now sits on the corner of Howard and Ohio.

Avery was only 15 when she got the job. “They used someone else’s name at the time and gave me a birthday party saying I was 16 so I could work,” she remembered with a laugh.

Avery remembers when she was fortunate enough to get her an automatic washing machine. “I thought I was in heaven when we got that,” she said.

Avery is the third of 12 children. She is also the oldest daughter. She said for years she helped help change diapers and do chores around the house. “You don’t know what fun is unless you are the third child and oldest daughter,” she laughed.