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Earlier this spring, my play Greetings from Paradise opened to a full house at the Miracle Theatre, launching Coral Gables’ 100th anniversary with a five-night run. It was a labor of love and a tribute to the dreamers of early South Florida, George Merrick and Carl Fisher, who transformed palmetto scrub and swampland into the paradise we know today.
One of the joys of writing the play was researching our region’s past. Many assume South Florida lacks the rich, layered history of older cities. What I found was the opposite: a cast of bold, eccentric, and often reckless pioneers who dared to build cities from coral and sand.
But one detail bothered me: Jane Fisher’s age when she married Carl Fisher. In my play, I introduced Jane as the famed original bathing beauty and unofficial queen of Miami Beach.
In her 1947 memoir Fabulous Hoosier, Jane recounts how, at age 15, she was swept off her feet — braided pigtails and all — by the 35-year-old entrepreneur who would become the father of Miami Beach. He married her quickly, she claims, so she could travel with him on business. Jane proudly repeats her age twice in the book, painting their relationship as a scandalous whirlwind romance.
The only problem? It isn’t true.
Several obituaries from 1968 listed her age at death as 74 — matching the 15-year-old bride narrative. But something felt off. I searched for a birth certificate under “Jane Watts,” her maiden name, and came up empty.
Then I found the 1900 U.S. Census. Listed was a “Jenny Watts,” age 15, born March 1885, living in Clermont, IN with her parents James Buchanan Watts and Ada, and a brother named Roy. If accurate, Jane would have been 24 when she married Carl in 1909 — not 15.
Could it be a different Jane? Maybe.
But then I found the 1910 census taken one year after their wedding. It lists her as 25 years old and married to Carl Fisher. Then came the clincher: Jane’s own passport application from Feb. 15, 1919. In her own handwriting, she states her birthdate as March 29, 1885.
There it was. The truth.
So why the 15-year-old bride story? Perhaps it added flair to her memoir — or helped her shave a decade off her age for social cachet. After divorcing Carl in 1926, Jane married (and divorced) three more times. Maybe the fib stuck because it served her well.
But the mystery didn’t stop at her age.
Her name, too, was confusing — Watts, Welch, even “Jennie Millslagle.” Eventually, the pieces came together. Jane was born Jennie Millslagle in 1885 to George and Ada (Jones) Millslagle. When George went to jail for theft, Ada divorced and married J.B. Watts, who raised Jane.
Later, Ada married a third time to George Welch. Journalists likely muddled the last names, especially since Ada visited her daughter in Miami Beach well into Jane’s fame. After her fourth and final divorce, Jane petitioned to get the surname Fisher back, even though by then, Carl was married to someone else.
To some, this age discrepancy may seem trivial. But as a journalist, facts matter. They mattered in Greetings from Paradise too. One of the central characters, Frank Harris, is a New York journalist who arrives in Florida in 1925 to expose the frenzy behind the land boom. He gets swept up in the spectacle, only to find his way back to the truth when the bubble burst.
In researching the play, I encountered inaccuracies in non-fiction books about the era, sited and repeated, again and again.
When one reporter questioned her about her age, Jane replied, “I never tell anyone my age. I was 39 last year and this year I’m 38, and if I live long enough, I’ll be an infant when I die.”
In the end, Jane did manage to shave two years off her age. Her tombstone at Woodlawn Cemetery in Miami reads simply: “Jane Fisher, 1887–1968.”
It’s a small correction in the sweep of history — but a reminder of why truth matters. In an age flooded with misinformation, it’s more important than ever to challenge what we’re told. Because when myths go unchallenged, they become fact. And that has far greater consequences than just finding out Carl Fisher didn’t actually seduce a pigtailed schoolgirl after all. Or, maybe he thought he had?
June Thomson Morris, a resident of Coral Gables, is a journalist and playwright.
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