WAY BACK WHEN: Charlie Joiner, of Oakland

There is plenty of evidence to suggest Charlie Joiner’s family — the Tubbs — played a significant role in the history of the town of Oakland. Town Hall is located on Tubb Street, and the fountain in the town square is dedicated to Grover Cleveland Tubb, an Oakland pioneer.

Joiner can remember his grandfather being an important part of Oakland’s history. He served as sheriff — some historic records list him as a marshal — and he drove an official car resembling the squad car driven by Sheriff Taylor in “The Andy Griffith Show.” Later in his life, Grover Tubb served as the trash collector, the town’s caretaker and the keeper of the Oakland Post Office keys.

Grover and Ruby Tubb came to Oakland from Mississippi. He was born in 1890, and she was born five years later. They lived in a tiny wooden home near what’s now the Oakland Meeting Hall. At that time, there was no large water tank looming over Town Hall; instead, his grandparents’ yard held two small tanks providing water to the town. When Charlie Joiner’s grandfather died in 1977, the wooden house was torn down.

“He was like the caretaker,” he said. “I think the town let him live there.”

Charlie Joiner’s mother, Connie Tubb Joiner, was born in 1939 in the old Oakland Hotel further north on Tubb Street. The hotel has long been demolished, but the hotel kitchen still stands today and serves as a residence.

Charlie Joiner said he grew up hearing many stories about Oakland’s earliest years from his grandparents and his parents.

Just north of Town Hall and the West Orange Trail is a two-story wooden home built for the railroad workers. His grandparents lived on the second floor of the house, and his mother grew up there with her six brothers and sisters. Three of her older brothers fought in World War II, and all three returned home.

“My mother used to always tell the story: When World War II ended, she remembers as a young child running down the stairs … saying, ‘The war is over, the war is over!’” Charlie Joiner said. “It was a big memory in her life.”

Connie Tubb met her husband, Gene Joiner, when she was working for Florida Power in the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Winter Garden. He was working for his uncle fixing radiators behind the Glenn Joiner & Sons shop one block to the west. They set up their home in Ocoee, but she was eager to get back to Oakland because her aging parents still lived there and were in need of assistance.

Charlie Joiner, now 65, was about 5 when his family relocated to Oakland, lived briefly in a home on Oakland Avenue and then built their own home near the old railroad tracks at Starr Street. Charlie Joiner married his wife, Theresa, in 1981, and, four years later, they built a home next to his parents. They live there still today, and their daughter, April Grimes, lives in her grandparents’ old home next door. They also have two sons, Matthew and Nicholas.

AN OAKLAND CHILDHOOD

Charlie Joiner recalls attending preschool at Oakland Presbyterian Church — and in a full-circle moment, he now works as the church’s part-time property manager.

As an only child, Charlie Joiner relied on his many cousins for kinship. He attended Tildenville Elementary School and Lakeview Jr./Sr. High School before graduating in the second class at West Orange High School.

He remembers playing along the dirt streets of Oakland — only Oakland Avenue and half of Tubb Street was paved.

Oakland had a few stores, including Dees Grocery and, across the street, Gulley Hardware — both on Oakland Avenue. West of downtown was another store, and east of the town limits was Mr. Reddick’s store at Tildenville School Road. It doubled as a gas station, Charlie Joiner said.

“I remember seeing people get gas, but the pumps were probably shut off very early in my childhood,” he said. “I remember going into the store to buy, like, a Coke or candy.”

At some point, his uncle, aunt and two cousins lived upstairs above Reddick’s business.

NOTHING BUT ORANGES

“I used to ride my bike, and Oakland was just dirt roads and orange groves,” Charlie Joiner recalled. “When you go down Tubb Street now, it was dirt. When my grandfather did the trash, when I was a kid … he had a tractor and a big wagon … I would sit on the back of the wagon, and he would go around town, and people would drag their debris to the road, and we would load it.

“If you go down Tubb Street, it was all orange groves to the lake,” he said. “There’s the tennis court on the left, and if you take a left and kept going one more road and turn again, which is still a dirt road, everything was orange groves all the way to the lake. Really, Oakland was orange groves to the lake.

“Where the Oakland charter school is, orange groves,” he said. “Behind our house all the way to the bike trail, all orange groves. Me and some buddies that lived in Oakland, we used to have orange wars, running through the groves throwing oranges at each other. Right out here, this field, that was an orange grove. Where the Baptist church is now was an orange grove.”

STREETS HONOR PIONEERS

In 1972, the Oakland Town Commission decided to recognize its former residents by renaming all the streets, which, at the time, were numbered. Fourth Street was renamed Tubb Street in honor of Grover Cleveland Tubb.

“In one of the town meetings, they had told everybody what the names of the roads were going to be, and my grandfather — I remember my mother telling me this story — Grandpa was so proud,” Charlie Joiner said. “To have lived there and for them to think, the conversation must have been, ‘The main road in Oakland will be Oakland Avenue, and the other main road will be Tubb.’ … That would be like Orange Avenue in Orlando and Colonial (Drive) being named after you. … He was so proud.”

In 1977, after high school, Charlie Joiner and some buddies went for an interview at Walt Disney World. He was hired, first cooking hamburgers and then moving to merchandise, where he managed retail for about 20 years. His next move was to Epcot, where he discovered he loved the cleaning business. For the rest of his career, about 25 years, he worked in the custodial department — spending five years at Epcot and the remaining 20 at the Magic Kingdom.

He retired this year and took on the part-time position at Oakland Presbyterian. He grew up in the Baptist church in Winter Garden; he became Presbyterian when he and his wife were looking for a church in which to get married.

“We came here and asked the pastor, ‘Can we get married here?’ That was in 1980-81. He said, ‘Well, can you join?’”

Charlie and Theresa Joiner have been members ever since, and it’s now like home to them.