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Sarasota News Leader May 3, 2013 Page 78 such as music, dance and arts and crafts fol- FAMILY LORE lowed. Although Stieff takes great delight in talking Stieff's favorite part of school came at 4 p.m.: about her immediate family, she also points to Sports Hour. It was "the highlight of the day her interest in genealogy. Decades before her own father came to Sarasota, she notes, her as far as I was concerned," she says. grandfather reportedly was a blockade-runner Then, at 4:45 p.m., everyone boarded a bus to during the Civil War. return home. The story goes that after he was captured Stieff also smiles broadly when recollecting by the Union Army, Stieff's grandmother — that the students were fitted for "rhythm san- whose family was in Baltimore — was able to dals," which the children wore as protection make it out of Fernadina Beach on the train from sand spurs. The latter, she says, "were a just before the federal troops captured the major problem in Florida." town. The thinking also went that the sandals made Once she was back in Baltimore, Stieff says, her grandmother decided to personally petithose young feet stronger, she points out. Owen Burns built the El Vernona luxury hotel in the 1920s and named it for his wife. It stood where the Ritz-Carlton is located today. Photo courtesy Sarasota County Department of Historical Resources