Helen Parce DeLand returns to DeLand, Florida after seventeen years.

There was much excitement in our community during the last week of January 1925, one hundred years ago. The Volusia County Fair was in full swing and a visitor from Fairport, New York had arrived. Miss Helen Parce DeLand arrived for her first visit in 17 years. She had first come in 1876 with her parents, Henry and Sarah DeLand, and brother Harlan when she was a girl of just 7. She grew up between Fairport and DeLand, enjoying the amenities of a wealthy family in upstate New York, and the contrasting pioneer life in the newly founded Florida community named after her father. Helen was 55 years old when she came back to see West Volusia and was amazed at the growth and progress since her last visit in 1908, the year her father, Henry Addison DeLand had died. 

The DeLand Sun News reported on January 30th of Helen’s impressions upon seeing her former part time hometown. She remarked on the wonderful advancements since her father’s founding of the city 47 years prior. She told of the fine orange groves on “the Terry Place” where the Putnam Hotel was standing in 1925. She remembered a bountiful grove where the College Arms Hotel had been built. She stated, “I had heard of the growth but never realized the extent to which this community had progressed.” 

Helen was driven around the city by old friends to see the familiar haunts and new additions. She remarked on the size of the many oak trees her father had provided and that the palm trees in the courtyard at Stetson she last saw as seedlings were as tall as the buildings. She also was surprised at the character of the business district. She visited Dreka’s Department Store which proved a revelation to Helen. “In the old days we could obtain only the barest necessities and for finer things one had to send off for them. Now the stores carry stock as good as any of the larger cities in New York State.” On her way from Fairport, she had stopped in Rochester to do some shopping, but had she known more about DeLand’s stores she would have saved the trip.

The honored visitor was feted at lunches at the College Arms, attended chapel services at Stetson and went to a meeting of the Old Settlers Society, a group strictly for those who pioneered Deland from 1876 to 1886. She was driven to Lake Helen, the village her father named for her. But the highlight of her trip was going to the Volusia County Fair, held in those days in late January. The fair greeted 35,000 attendees for the week and a huge crowd of 15,000 on the day Helen attended, Saturday January 31, 1925. 

Helen DeLand left for home in Fairport the next week and stated that her conclusion was that DeLand is the “coming metropolis” of Central Florida. Three years later in 1928, she wrote and published a book about her childhood, The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen Florida. It was reprinted in 1990 by West Volusia Historical Society and is available in the society’s library. Helen had lost both parents and her brother by 1913. She worked in Fairport as a teacher then as the city’s librarian. She visited West Volusia again in 1951, for DeLand’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 75 years. On that visit Helen, 82, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Stetson University. Helen DeLand died in Fairport in 1956 at 87 years of age and is buried with her family in Fairport’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  

Excerpt from; 

The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen Florida, Helen DeLand, 1928.  

The DeLand Sun News, Jan. 30, 31, February 1925.

Biography of Helen DeLand, 

Susan Roberts for Perinton Historical Society, 

2018. 

Photo: Helen DeLand at age 50 in 1920.