A Legacy of Citrus and Family

I am Elizabeth Graves Bass. I grew up here and was born in Vero Beach. Even though every time I tell one of the visitors from the northern parts of the country that I was born here, they're very surprised. I assure them that people were indeed born here. They did birth babies back then, and my family has always been in agriculture in one form or another. Eventually, in the years of my life, we were in citrus, and my father was Rip Graves. He was very prominent in the citrus industry. He's in the citrus Hall of Fame, and he's also in the agriculture Hall of Fame, which is a little bit bigger deal in this County.

We're the longest-running citrus company that is still in the same families. This started with my grandfather and his brother, and then there was my father, and then there was my brother and me. I always said I was the other Graves brother. The two brothers went into business together as young men. Then they eventually moved to Indian River County, and that would be in the early 20s that they moved here, and they started out growing vegetables. My mother came down from Virginia, and she was a teacher, and daddy always said that the teachers didn't get paid till Graves Brothers paid their taxes because this was depression time. I think it was true. It's probably true. They had to sell some land. They owned a tremendous amount of property. They owned two townships.

The best grapefruit is that which is produced under the Orchid label. That's what Japan always bought. They were the country willing to pay a premium for their fruit, and so a lot of our fruit went to Japan. And there actually is a Japanese man. I can't tell you his name, but he owns the Orchid label. He bought it when Deerfield gave it up. He was quick, and he bought it, but we owned Graves Brothers' exclusive right to use it in this country.

Daddy had just an incredible memory, and I nagged him until he started writing them down. And the result of that was two books. This is one of them, The Graves Brothers. It's the history of the company for the first hundred years.

There's an old story, but history credits Abraham Lincoln with the story of an old farmer plowing his field with a mule, and a bystander who was watching the farmer and the mule go back and forth, he noticed a big horsefly that was stinging the poor old mule. So when the mule passed by within the man's reach, he reached out and swatted the fly. The angry farmer turned to him and said, "Why in the world did you have to go and do that for? That's the only thing that was making him go." So, I think that maybe I was that fly. I was the only thing that was encouraging or maybe nagging my dad until he started writing down these wonderful memories, and so we have this book.