Four Generations Reunion

On modern Marco Island, where it sometimes seems like much of the population has moved here since COVID, it’s refreshing to hear of families who have been here for 50 years or more. The families of Tommie Dee Moss and Kathy Canady—each with four generations strong—have been friends for over 50 years. And for almost 20 of those years, the group rotated hosting Sunday dinners at 5:00 PM sharp. It’s a routine that celebrates communal bonds and family ties.

Moss, born in 1947, was raised in Goodland starting in 1949. Her mother, Kappy Kirk, was the longtime postmaster of Goodland. Her father, Bud Kirk, a famous local fisherman, founded Kirk Fish Company, which still thrives today on Goodland. But her great aunt Tommie Barfield, Marco Island’s pioneer heroine, is the name that resonates most prominently across modern Marco Island. Newcomers probably know Barfield’s name because she’s the namesake of the island’s high-achieving elementary school, founded in 1956. But most probably cannot conceive of the depth of her contributions to Marco Island and the creation of Collier County in 1923. Moss is named after her famous great aunt.

"There's a story on that one,” Moss said. "Mother and father didn't name me right away. I came home from the hospital and Tommie called mom and she said, 'Kappy, you have not named that child yet.' My mom said, ‘No, no, I know.' So, mother said she showed up with a piece of a brown paper bag with Tommie Camilla, Tommie this, Tommie that, written on it. So I actually got named Tommie Dee. Dee Willow was the name of one of my grandmothers. And thank God they didn't name me Tommie Dee Willow.”

Moss has just one memory of her famous great aunt.

"I remember her,” Moss said. “My one memory of Aunt Tommie was when she was dying. We were all in the same home, and she was in the back bedroom, and I just kind of remember that. But other than that, I don't remember Aunt Tommie. That's the only real memory I have of her.”

Moss said her parents often talked to her about Tommie Barfield.

"Mother loved her,” she said. "Father put up with her. I think there was competition between them. Father was a Yankee and she was controlling of mother, so I always felt like they kind of bounced a little bit. I think they respected each other. Neither one of them would back down.”

Bud Kirk was indeed a Yankee, moving here when he was 17.

“When father was here, it was rough,” Moss said. "I remember father telling a story about rowing to one of the islands. The tide was going the wrong way. And the roaches would eat the calluses off their feet. So it was rough. I mean, it was hard living.”

Moss recalls her childhood years on Goodland.

“It was a little fishing village,” Moss said. "You had all the kids. Girls were very equal to boys. If they needed to play a team, they needed us because there weren't enough kids. And we had boats, and they had boats. We just all played together. There was no male or female kind of deal. We weren't mean to each other. We didn't pick on each other. We were good kids. We never did anything damaging. We never broke anything. We just didn't do that. Even the bad ones were good.”

Moss was a beauty queen in her younger days.

“I was the Swamp Buggy Queen,” Moss said with a laugh. “I was still in high school. It was 1964. But I was a bad queen. I should have never won. I refused to go in the parade. I’m not a nice person. I never have been,” she jokes.

One of the traditions of the Swamp Buggy Races is that the queen gets thrown in the water by the winner.

“He dumped me in the water,” Moss said. “The girls dress up in their fancy dresses now. I wasn’t dressed up. He picked me up and I thought, ‘Oh, what a gentleman.' Then he threw me in the water and down we went."

Moss and her late husband, Ken, raised their two children on Marco Island, then later moved back to Goodland, where she still resides.

Canady’s family doesn’t go back as far as Mosses, but their impact on the island is quite significant, too.

"I'm 75,” Canady said, "I came here in 1967 from Sleepy Hollow, New York, with my father-in-law, Art Canady. I had just had a baby and they brought me here. And I cried and I cried.”

Back in the mid-60s, modern Marco was just beginning behind the big dreams of the Mackle Corporation, the developers of modern Marco Island. Everyone on the island knew Art Canady, a successful entrepreneur during the island's fledgling years.

“There were 300 people here,” Canady said, “maybe a few more. There wasn’t much. Nothing on the beach. He had everything,” Canady said of her father-in-law. "You remember the first gas station? He eventually sold it. He built the Island Automotive building, then he sold it to Keith Pershing. He was the only one to work on cars here for 10 years. Then he got the Chevron station, the parts store, and the paint store. He never stopped.”

Longtime Marco Islanders will remember Canady from her days as a bartender at the Snook Inn chickee bar.

“I worked at the Little Bar for two or three years,” she said. "I left there in 1982 and I retired from the Snook Inn 35 years later.”

While the Moss and Canady families don’t always reunite every Sunday like they once did, they still keep their unique four-generation-old friendship going strong.

“We're not related,” Canady said of her family’s enduring friendship with the Moss family. "We're just all good friends. I'm not related to Tommie, we’ve just known each other forever."