HP: When you started at Saint Leo as a student in 1970, how many other
black kids were enrolled as students, do you think?
GR: Wasn’t many. Not many of us there. In fact, I’m trying to think, did I
know anybody? If there were, they were on the athletic team, and I didn’t
have them … all my friends were white because at that time there wasn’t
that many.
HP: But you made friends just fine. They accepted you?
GR: They accepted me just fine. Because we had the orientation, we got to
meet each other whatever the case may be and there were classes. That
group just jelled because that group was from the North anyway, and they
were more open.
HP: What was your maiden name?
GR: Billings.
HP: So you mentioned your grandfather, who was the orange grove
keeper.
GR: For Burkes and Burkes. His name was Frank McCoy.
HP: So Frank McCoy was your grandfather, and he worked for the Burkes?
GR: He was their grove keeper, or their foreman as they call it. In fact, we
lived on the property there, right behind the college.
HP: So the Burkeses owned that grove—so it wasn’t the groves the monks
kept. But (your grandfather) got to know Father Marion Bowman, and
Father Marion said ‘You have this granddaughter …’
GR: Well, his daughter. I was raised by him.
HP: And Father Marion said ‘When your daughter is ready, she can come to
college,’ and he let you come basically for a song. For whatever you could pay.
GR: Books. That’s all I paid, was for books.
HP: And that’s an important story, it’s what I needed to hear because we
wanted to find out the connections between the college (in whatever its
forms) and the community. And your mother worked for the Montessori
school with the nuns. And when did that start? Was this your grandmother?
GR: No, this was my mother. My grandmother laughter, my grandmother
worked for the Abbey. She was a cook for the Abbey.
HP: For the girls, or the nuns?
GR: No, not for the nuns, for the monks.
HP: And that was while you were growing up?
GR: Yeah, because she was there when I was in college. My mother also
worked as a cook with my grandmother there at the Abbey. She worked
there for a while as a cook, but then the nuns needed a cook, so my
grandma sent her over there with the nuns. So she was a cook over at the
nuns, and then they needed someone to go over to the day care, so they
sent her to the day care.
HP: You were right. These connections run deep and everywhere.
GR: Basically, we’ve been around. Our family has been pretty much around
with the college because of the fact that we lived right there. There was
a house back in there we used to live in, so that connection was there so
whenever they needed something when we were there ...Father Marion
would tell Daddy, and Daddy would come home and say they need this or
that, or whatever the case may be, and that’s what would happen. •
More of this interview, and other interviews, are archived among the digital assets of the Daniel A. Cannon
Memorial Library. To read more community history, visit slulibrary.saintleo.edu/communitymemoryarchive.
Saint Leo University SPIRIT.SAINTLEO.EDU 7
My Saint Leo is
a part of my
family history
“Basically, we’ve been
around. Our family
has been pretty much
around with the
college because of
the fact that we lived
right there.”
— Gloria Billings Roberts
/communitymemoryarchive
/SPIRIT.SAINTLEO.EDU