![]() ![]() Totch’s tales run the gamut from hunting raccoons and alligators, to eating the tasty “Chokoloskee Chicken” (white ibis, which is protected today) and living on the old homestead of “Bloody” Edgar Watson of “Killing Mister Watson” fame. No subject is off-limits in the book, which was published in 1993. 3 lead pencil, he began telling his story, beginning with the settling in the Ten Thousand Islands back in the 1880s. Totch decided to write his book, “Totch: A Life in the Everglades,” in order to “set the record straight.” At age 73, with a seventh-grade education and a No. ![]() ![]() Totch only left tthe island twice: oonce to serve his country during World War II, returning with both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 with the 87th Infantry and again to serve, this time 15 months in federal prison, for tax evasion stemming from his former marijuana smuggling days (he refused to rat out his friends). Eleven months later, the ffirst of their five cchildren wi (three of whom are still living) was born. He was 18 and Estelle just 14 when they married. Totch was 13 when he bought his first boat, and during Prohibition he helped his father run ’shine to help make ends meet. Maureen Sullivan-Hartung took this photo of Totch Brown and his dog in the mid-1990s.The family lived off the land in tarpaper shacks that were inundated with mosquitoes - “swamp angels,” as his grandfather McKinney called them, “so thick you could rake ’em off your brow by the handful!” ![]()
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