Remembering

Dianne Rhodes

Born on Dec. 30, 1946, her life began on the farmlands of Sedalia, Missouri, where she raised her son, Jon Ferguson, and daughter, Lori Harvey. A firm believer that “life is short, so eat your dessert first,” she found that “dessert” in Marathon when she followed her older sister Judy Shaw to the island in 1993.

Starting a cleaning and property management business, she eventually met the late Ernie Rhodes, founder of Rhodes Plumbing, in 1995. While the pair were repairing their hurricane-damaged house in 2006, Ernie was diagnosed with lung cancer. Accelerating their plans to wed in December of that year, the pair were married at Fishermen’s Hospital mere days before Ernie’s passing.

Described as an act of “fate or a higher power” by Lori Harvey, plumber Todd Childress began working for Rhodes Plumbing the week before Ernie’s first doctor’s appointment. Left with Ernie’s business upon his passing, Dianne left her own business to continue Rhodes Plumbing with Childress.

“She just jumped in, and as with everything that my mom did, she figured it out,” said Lori, calling Childress her “brother from another mother” who had a “very special relationship” with Dianne.

“Once in a while, you meet somebody and you don’t know why you’re drawn to each other,” Childress told the Weekly. “She was one of the coolest people I ever met.”

Dianne eventually became “not your typical grandmother” to three granddaughters, one grandson, and three stepgrandchildren. Her accumulation of grandchildren would give her eight great-grandchildren. Childress and his wife Patti, along with their children, Carley and Max, also became family.

In 2013, she would meet Bobby Young, her partner until she passed away. Together, the pair would travel to the Bahamas throughout her final decade on their boat, “Life is Good,” docking at Treasure Cay or Green Turtle Cay and inviting family and friends to visit.

Known for her pride in her appearance, Dianne loved wearing Lilly Pulitzer dresses, a tradition she passed on to her “Lilly Girls” including Harvey and granddaughters Jessica Borraccino, Emily Lehman, Anna Katherine Bruce and Chandler Jones. She also converted her great-granddaughters, Avery Mae Lehman and Isla Borraccino, into Lilly Girls.

“I don’t know if she was ageless, or she was scared of getting old, but we never talked about things like her birthday,” said Harvey. “Before she got sick, she didn’t look 75. She was not your typical grandma. … She had three Corvettes.”

Orchids, palm trees, bromeliads and plants from wherever she could find them made their way to her yard after botanical field trips with Shaw. Her yard became the place where she spent countless cathartic hours planting and tending to her ever-evolving and growing little jungle. She and Captain Bobby spent their early mornings sitting on the back porch with their coffee, watching the birds and listening to the wind chimes.

Famous among family and friends for her ability to do anything she set her mind to, she could “recover an old couch or bring an old dining room table back to life with a little paint and her ingenuity,” said son-in-law Steven Harvey. “She ran a tanning business in Missouri and a plumbing business in Marathon. She went to Fantasy Fest. She rode out several hurricanes, including Irma. (But) with all the things she was and did in her life, she was never presumptuous, and she made loving her easy.”

“She was always a person to say, F it, do whatever makes you happy,” said Childress. “She told you how she felt, and she didn’t pull any punches, whether it was a friend or foe.

“It’s hard to put into words what she meant to me. … She would do anything for anybody, but she’d be the first person to tell you, ‘No, that’s B.S., I’m not doing that.’”

Honoring Ernie Rhodes’ wish that his business would eventually pass to his employees, Dianne gave full ownership of Rhodes Plumbing to Childress.

“Mom said, ‘There would be no Ernest E. Rhodes Plumbing if it wasn’t for Todd,’ and that’s a 150% true statement,” Harvey told the Weekly.

Dianne’s family will celebrate her life at her home in Marathon on July 30. Details will be announced soon for family and friends to attend.

Mark Hedden

... is a photographer, writer, and semi-professional birdwatcher. He has lived in Key West for more than 25 years and may no longer be employable in the real world. He is also executive director of the Florida Keys Audubon Society.

There are two ways to look at summertime birdwatching in the Florida Keys. First, there aren’t many birds around, so it’s kind of boring. Second, there aren’t many birds around, so it’s a great time to start birdwatching. A little over 800 species of birds have been recorded in North America. About 350 of those have been seen in the Florida Keys, which is loosely defined as everything from the 18-Mile Stretch down to Key West. (If you define the Florida Keys as Monroe County, then a large chunk of it is the Everglades, a whole different — alligator-filled — ballgame.)

Of those 350 species, about 70 can be seen pretty readily year-round if you spend a bit of time outdoors. Seventy species may seem like a lot, but not if you break them up into smaller, more easily identifiable groups – ducks, gulls, songbirds, chickens, etc.

(Birding in the summer is a great way to get your footing, but it’s best to do it in the morning or late afternoon to avoid the heat, unless you like the dizzy, de-energized feeling that comes from the relentless noonday sun.)

Herons and egrets —creatures of shallow waters and shorelines — are a great starting point for beginners. We have a lot of them. Also, they’re rather large, easy to find and not too difficult to tell apart. A field guide really helps, but this list should narrow down the possibilities.

Great blue heron

Approximately 4 feet tall, it’s the tallest bird you’ll see in the Keys. It’s got a solid, railroad spike of a bill, and plumage that is primarily a slaty blue, but with a whitish face and a black crown. Their range is all over North America, stretching down through Mexico and Central America. You see them most often standing statue-like on the shore, as if posing for a postage stamp photo, but they’ll occasionally be flying or hunting for fish in the flats.

Great white heron

The great white heron only occurs in the Florida Keys and extreme South Florida. They are officially considered a subspecies of the great blue heron, but that could change, depending on how the folks at the American Ornithological Society define a species. Many people call the great white heron the wordier, more technically correct, “great blue heron, white color morph.” (That’s how it’s listed on most checklists.) But they’re a hometown bird, and I’m rooting for them to be considered their own species again, so I always refer to them as great whites. They are essentially the same size and shape as the great blue, with the same