LOCAL OBSERVATION / Floy V. Thompson, a lady to be remembered

BY CHRISTINA OXENBERG

KONK LIFE COLUMNIST

Before the Key West High School graduation day, together with my wonderful friend visionary David Wolkowsky and long time Key West resident Ed Block, I attended the annual Teachers’ Awards. I watched, entranced, as beaming teachers stepped up, hands out for their sizable checks.

In turn, the winners came and spoke a grateful word to David, as it was his money they were winning. Another award David quietly funds is the The Floy V. Thompson Community Awareness Scholarship. A $25,000 prize to help with college expenses and awarded to a student each year for exceptional service to their community. Which sounds straightforward enough, but I had the chance to read the applications and there were 25 strong contenders.

At the Custom House Museum (Locals: That’s the big redbrick building on Front Street), you’ll be dazzled by a festoon of white petals. Walking into this shower of milky orchids, essentially breathing in live beauty, is a fitting greeting to a charming institution. The Custom House Museum is well worth a visit, and not only because my books are available for purchase in the gift store. But I digress.

Nearby the orchids, a plaque on the wall reveals these flowers are a gift, in perpetuity, in the name of Floy Vance Thompson. Who is this Floy Vance Thompson, I had to ask, in whose name so much benevolence is distributed? Turns out Floy was one of David’s dearest friends and he remembers her with great tenderness.

In 1962 and nursing a broken heart, Floy Vance, after the dissolution of her first marriage to a Lucky Strike cigarette heir from Columbia, S.C., the indomitable and vivacious Floy hung her bonnet in Key West, searching for succor on this sultry healing island. One of the first people she met was David Wolkowsky and they became lifelong friends.

Key West fell mesmerized by Floy’s wit and charm and style. Just to mention a few of those who adored her there was Jimmy buffet who asked her to be in a movie, and made a tape talking about her. “He loved her,” said David. “So did Tom McGuane, and Jim Harrison.” Apparently Tennessee Williams was a huge fan and would frequently drop in to refresh his supplies of her valium tablets. Author John Leslie was moved to compose a two-page story on Floy. Everybody loved her.

And speaking of love, soon enough she met Norberg Thompson. The Thompson family was, and had been for many years, a reigning and powerful entity in Key West, with fingers in every conceivable industrial pie. The Thompson family ran vast empires. The 20th Century in Key West belonged to them, with heirs continuing in the family businesses.

Grandson Norberg Thompson, friends with Pauline and Ernest Hemingway who frequently traveled on safari with Papa Hemingway, was just what the doctor ordered for the delectably charming Miss Floy. In 1990, as her health was evidently failing, David conceived of the Floy V. Thompson Community Awareness Scholarship, mostly to cheer her up.

Floy, by now in a wheelchair, would graciously meet the winner who was brought over to be introduced, filling her with satisfaction and joy. As David Wolkowsky says, “Floy brought life to Key West.” While the lady in question passed on in 1993, David keeps her memory and spirit and her elegant legacy alive with these awards and endowments, passing on the good.

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