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Fran Santini, of Fort Myers Beach, died on Saturday at the age of 94. Santini was considered a matriarch of Fort Myers Beach. Photo provided
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Fran Santini goes through her scrapbook in 2016 inside her home. File photo
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Island historians A.J. Bassett and Fran Santini talked about life as schoolgirls on Fort Myers Beach.
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Fran Santini points out a visiting heron in the trees behind her home.
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BOB PETCHER
Fran Santini, Jean Matthew, A.J. Bassett, and Roxie Smith were given Heritage Award plaques for their Beach history keeping. Councilman Alan Mandel assisted in the awards presentation.
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Memories of nine decades of Fort Myers Beach history passed with Fran Santini over the weekend. Known as the matriarch of the island, she died at 94 “gently in her sleep” on Saturday at Discovery Commons in Fort Myers, with Hospice Services, her family said in a statement.
A fifth-generation native Floridian, she attended the town’s first public schoolhouse and lived to see the closing of possibly its last public school. She was known as an unofficial historian of Fort Myers Beach.
Santini was a longtime treasurer of the Estero Island Historic Society, an organization she co-founded.
“Fran was the original beach kid,” Estero Island Historic Society President Ellie Bunting said. “She grew up on the island and has memories that need to be preserved. She is one of the last of the beach kids that grew up together in the 30s and 40s. Fran loved the island and was involved in many community activities. She was a founding member of Estero Island Historic Society and served as our treasurer for many years. She loved the island and would have stayed in her home on Primo Street if it weren’t for (Hurricane) Ian.”
A special tribute for Santini will be held at the Estero Island Historic Society on Wednesday, April 8.
Her family name adorns Santini Marina Plaza, which was built by her uncle Leonard Armand Santini. He also constructed Leonardo Arms, a condo development that bears his name on the south end of Fort Myers Beach. He acquired much of the land on the south end of the island in the 1940’s after the success of his potato farm during World War 2.
Ms. Santini had lived on Fort Myers Beach for nearly all of her life until Hurricane Ian destroyed her home on Primo Drive in 2022. The water came within three inches of her ceiling, her niece Marci Hallock said. Santini was not on the island at the time of the hurricane. The home was eventually torn down and Santini spent the rest of her years off island.
Frances Jean Santini was born in Iona on Sept. 3, 1931 to Margaret Jean Smith Santini and J. Cyril Santini. They moved from Leonard Santini’s farm to Fort Myers Beach in 1935, where J. Cyril Santini built the family a home on Primo Drive during the Great Depression.
Fran Santini was predeceased by her parents and her five siblings Grinnell “Stogie”, Elmo ” Modie”, June, Leonard Cyril and Mary Blanche Townley-Lee. She was also predeceased by her nephews Joe Santini Jr. and Bud Santini; nieces Sandra Smith, Ginny Johnson, and Kristin Johnson.
In a statement, the family said that Santini was also survived “by numerous close cousins, and many great nieces and great nephews, all of whom will dearly miss her loving presence and guidance in our lives. She is also survived by her cherished friends of the Fran Fan Club on Primo Drive.”
Hallock was known for having kept many photos of the old Fort Myers Beach in a scrapbook and on her walls. Much of that was believed to have been lost in Hurricane Ian. “Luckily many photos had been shared or copied,” Hallock said. “She had been making a big effort at 90 to begin going through things and parceling them out to us or to the Estero Island Historic Society.”
Santini was known as a fierce protector of the island, who was concerned about big development proposals. In a profile in the Fort Myers Beach Observer in 2016, Santini expressed alarm at a proposal for a seawall that had been a part of development plans being discussed for a former resort project. “A seawall on Fort Myers Beach? I would have never believed such a thing,” Santini said. “Our beach will never be the same again.” Ten years later, town officials are now considering a wave mitigation wall, promoting one on the beach near Times Square.
In the 2016 profile, Santini spoke of the tranquility along the canal behind her home. She liked to check in with the black crown night herons who perch in her trees. For years, she said she was visited daily by a white egret. “I’d feed him, although I wasn’t supposed to. I’d prepare him fish,” Santini said.
Santini and her family moved to Fort Myers Beach in time for her to join the first grade of the first year of the island’s first public schoolhouse on Cottage Street, where the Estero Island Historic Society now resides. That was before air conditioning existed. “It was just great not having it,” Santini said. “We didn’t know any better, but I can tell you that back then there was nothing blocking that breeze off the Gulf and off the bay. There was little concrete – no large buildings and just dirt roads. There was nothing like having those windows open.” Her first job, in 1952, was at Beach Lumber, where she worked for 42 years.
Former Fort Myers Beach Mayor Tracey Gore was a longtime neighbor of Santini before Hurricane Ian. “There is nobody that (was) here longer than her,” Gore said. “She was a strong, independent woman.”
Gore said Santini liked to talk about the island’s history and had a love of maps. “She knew everything (about the town’s history),” Gore said. “She had a way of telling stories that you wanted to hear the end.”
Santini was part of the town’s original incorporation group in the 1990’s. “She was feisty,” Gore said. Gore credited Santini with encouraging her to run for office after her concern about the seawall that was part of the Grand Resorts project proposal. The concern centered on potential erosion impacts from a seawall.
“She was nice to everybody,” Gore said. “She is the top-tier Fort Myers Beach matriarch.”
Former Fort Myers Beach Mayor Anita Cereceda referred to Santini as a “matriarch of this community.”
Cereceda said Santini “exemplified a life well lived.” Cereceda said Santini was “warm and gracious and it’s kind of weird to think of Fort Myers Beach without her. It’s sort of the same void that Betty Simpson left. Betty died and it’s like ‘Betty Simpson isn’t here? What the heck?’ Same sort of feeling with Fran.”
Cereceda said Santini’s family left a large legacy on the island.
“She was such a real person,” Cereceda said. “No matter where you saw her, no matter what she was doing, she was who she was and she was a Fort Myers Beach person through and through.”
Cereceda used to visit Santini in her home. “She had loads and loads of pictures,” she said. “It was lined with pictures and memories, it was something else. Pictures of her family, pictures of fish that had been caught, just a little bit of everything. It was eclectic. It was marvelous.”
Gore said the street the town named Waistina Way in the summer of 2022, should be renamed after the late Ms. Santini. The town named the road and beach access “Waistina Way” for the road next to the parking lot that was built next to Margaritaville Beach Resort after an exchange of properties.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her honor to the Estero Island Historical Society, 161 Bay Road, Fort Myers Beach, 33931. Further arrangements are pending at this time.
Survivors include her loving nieces and nephews: Marci Hallock of Tillamook, Oregon; Carla (Charlie) Middleton, of Fort Myers Myers; Mark (Terry) Townley of Blairsville, Georgia; Jay (Holly) Townley of Alva; Bettena (Tim) Jones of Fort Myers, and Martha Santini of Fort Myers.
Fort Myers Beach Observer Editor Nathan Mayberg can be reached at NMayberg@breezenewspapers.com