Sherman "Buddy" L. Tuppen

Bud Tuppen is a third-generation Floridian.

His grandmother, Laura Ada Murphy, was born in Umatilla, Florida in 1876. She married his grandfather Frank Edward Lee Tuppen in 1893. His grandfather came from England on the ship Britanna in 1893 at the age of 21. He was born in Brighton in 1870. He loved Florida and became an orange grower on a 5-acre lot in Narcoossee, Florida. Also he became a person who helped drive cattle across Florida with the Lykes brothers and continued for 2 years. He returned to Narcoosee and married Laura Ada in 1893. It was an elopement on horses to Orlando.

In 1895 Bud's dad, Sherman Leslie Tuppen, was born in Narcoossee. Unfortunately there were 2 big freezes in 1895 and the orange grove was lost. The Tuppen family moved to Ft. Pierce and had 2 big horses to haul stuff, and riding horses and buggy horses, rented to anyone who needed them. They all got diseased from the heat and all were lost. Then Frank started an ice factory in Ft. Pierce and he fired coal on a freight train for 2 years. At Cocoa there was a head-on collision and he ended up in a hospital in St. Augustine. He left the train and bought a place in Tillman, pretty close to Melbourne and farmed there for a while. He saw the first cars there occasionally. Then moved to Eau Gallie, worked for a woman named Barber, taking care of her property.

He finally received some money from his father's estate and bought a boat (1909) he

called the Miracle. With the boat he carried parties over to Melbourne Beach and made three trips to Palm Beach with parties, some of which were celebrities who went to the Casino there.

He moved to Munyon Island and lived there working with a hotel until it burned down. Billie Burke was one of the actresses there and he said he took them in a boat to get on a big spree all night and he'd have to carry them back if they were able to get on the boat.

He moved down to Prosperity Farms, now Lake Park. He bought another boat. There was a fellow there with a bunch of logs on the lakeside and he and Sherman, his son, went there with a chain and helped move them on Lake Worth.

After Prosperity Farms, he moved to an area and helped build a golf course on Military Trail and finally was the greenskeeper there. He was then invited to manage building a golf course at Temple Terrace near Tampa. He then moved to Temple Terrace. Then he went to build Pasadena Golf Course in St. Petersburg.

He remained in St. Petersburg and died there.

Sherman L. Tuppen, Sr., Bud's father, was born in 1895. He was in World War I in England and France and his job was repairing and servicing the aircraft. When he returned in 1918, he was in Lake Worth. He married Mildred Davis who was born in Missouri in 1901 and who moved to Lake Worth with her parents when she was 13. She was here before the "electric lights were turned on" so that makes her a "Lake Worth Pioneer." She was in the first graduation class of Palm Beach High, which is now the Dreyfuss School of the Arts.

They were married in 1921. He was a carpenter and he worked building Mar-A-Lago for Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1926 and 1927. With his experience as a carpenter there, he decided to open a millworks, making cabinets and other wood products needed in house building. Because it was the depression, he borrowed nickels, dimes and quarters from his friends and bought the property on which "Tuppen's Marine" now stands, and which was formerly a Ford dealership (Model A) on a property tax sale.

Buddy grew up when his dad was in the millworks business and helped there from the time he was little. He had an idyllic life as a child and was free to go down to the spillway and the intracoastal to go fishing and camping whenever he could (as soon as he learned to ride a bicycle). He went to North Grade Elementary and Lake Worth High, graduating in 1955. He also went to Palm Beach Junior College and University of Florida until he was called home to help run the business.

When he was 14 he applied for his learner's permit to drive but they made a mistake

and gave him his permanent license. After that he drove the company truck as far a La Belle, Florida, and other places hauling cypress lumber to his dad's millworks.

Also during the growing up years, age 12 to 16, he got into outboard boat racing, mostly on Lake Osborne, and his dad and he built his race boats. His parents supported him in that hobby. Later in the 1960's he became an ocean racer using outboards. He invented many new amendments to the outboard motors including counter rotating props during his ocean racing days. Those inventions are still used to this day. Counter rotating props changed the boats from sliding to a side on high waves, just kept them even. They are still being used in these days. One of the ocean races was 500 miles in the Bahamas.

He earned his college money by making water skis and selling them. They were so

good even Sears ordered them. Then he invented a process that would cure the skis end turn-up in minutes instead of days and could make many of them in a short time. The folks from Cypress Gardens said they'd like to buy the process from him. Being 18 he showed them how to do it and they didn't buy the process, but they used it themselves for years.

In 1956, Bud's dad wanted to expand the millworks but the City of Lake Worth commission wouldn't allow it. Bud and his brother, Ron, requested that they start a boat business. They did. Ron and Bud stayed as owners 47 years and retired and sold it. It is still called "Tuppen's Marine" by the recent owners. It has been in business there for 64 years.

Bud was born in 1937, met his wife Marilyn in 1957, and they were married in 1959. His dad was the contractor to build their house in Lake Worth in 1959. Definitely not Mar-A-Lago but really nice.

Bud loved hunting and fishing, owned an airboat as well as regular boats. He went to South America dove hunting and shot 1000 doves in one day. That was good because the farmers wanted to delete the number of doves eating their farm products and the birds were given to locals, hospitals, churches, etc. for food. Tuppen's also helped found Mako tournaments where owners of Mako boats made tournaments all over south Florida and into the Bahamas.

Later in life on retirement he bought an RV and they had wonderful trips all over the United States and Canada.

He's had a wonderful Florida life as a third generation Floridian. Unfortunately, his son, an only child, fourth generation Floridian, Scott Tuppen died of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 2012.

His brother Ron and sister Virginia have passed away so Bud is the last Tuppen in Florida.

Private Services will be held and a Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date.