Originally published in Safety Harbor Living magazine, August 2022

By Laura Kepner

In the 1930s and early 1940s, Robert and Mae McMullen were raising their daughters Betty Joe “BJ” and twins Sandra and Donna, in the home they called “the big house.” It was around the corner from where Safety Harbor Middle School is located now. BJ remembers around the time WWII ended, her parents moved the house to her grandfather’s property across what is now the busy four-lane road named for her family. “They waited until midnight and moved it down Main Steet,” she says, “and across McMullen Booth Road, Haines Road then, around where the daycare center is, on Sunset Point Road.”

BJ’s grandfather, George Ward McMullen, was the youngest of 11 children of James Parramore and Elizabeth McMullen, two of the first non-native settlers to the Pinellas Peninsula. At the conclusion of the Civil War, James established a farm, profiting from cattle and cotton. Eventually, he converted his farm and became one of the most successful citrus growers in the county. James opened the first school, which was named Sylvan Abbey, after the first teacher and her daughter, the first student. James and Elizabeth went on to foster 25 orphans and Elizabeth aided the community as a midwife, overseeing the births of approximately 55 children.

As James and Elizabeth’s great-granddaughter, it’s no surprise that BJ has also impacted the city’s history, and if you walk by McMullen Flower Shoppe at 101 Main Street, the scent of roses will invite you to step inside.

BJ remembers what big excitement it was to relocate the house. Her parents oversaw moving it to family land with plentiful space to grow vegetables and flowers, which became Mae’s passion. “Daddy had a little shop built for her out front,” BJ says. Before Haines Road became paved and was renamed McMullen-Booth Road, BJ remembers two dusty, sandy lanes. Cars drove around giant trees in haphazard spots. Her mother’s flower booth was there, in the middle of what is now McMullen Booth and Sunset Point Road.

Mae began supplying flowers to locals, the Spa, and to churches for Sunday services. If anyone needed a bouquet, they visited the little flower shop. In the 1950s, few cars traversed the roads into Safety Harbor, and when they did, it was likely a local behind the wheel. It was quite normal back then for kids to spend their days downtown. BJ often crossed Haines Road and headed up Main Street, bringing flowers on her bicycle. “Mr. Weagraff would put them in a little vase on his meat counter and sell them,” she remembers. Soon, changes and growth expanded the city and surrounding roads. “Mother’s flower shop had to be torn down when they extended the road.”

BJ remembers her mother’s first downtown shop near Barron’s Drugstore, its approximate location behind where Barfly is now. “We were only there one year,” she says. “It was so hot with the sun coming in every morning.”

In 1955, after space opened, Mae McMullen moved her flower shop from the south side of the street to the first floor of 101 Main.

The shop is BJ’s now. She took it over after her mother retired. Both of her parents and her sisters have passed but BJ comes to work every day except Sunday. She is surrounded by shelves of dainty teacups, antiques, yard ornaments, and unique gifts. There are also plants and flowers in a large cooler at the back and pictures of Old Safety Harbor on the walls. “This space came vacant. It had been a hardware store and when it was available, we moved.”

If anyone has seen Safety Harbor change through the years, it’s definitely BJ. She remembers every decade since the 1940s. She has never faltered in giving customers a little more than expected. Her daughter Melanie helps as does her granddaughter, Jennie. Locals will visit and chat while BJ works. Many stop to hear stories of Safety Harbor. In 2005, the City formally recognized the McMullen Flower Shoppe “for serving the Safety Harbor Main Street community for the last 50 years.”

“It’s always been a small town, a little town with a big beautiful tree,” she says, speaking of the Baranoff oak outside her shop’s window. “That’s our town’s calling card.”

She remembers the silent days of summer when the Spa was small and closed during the hottest months. She remembers the early granite sidewalks installed way before her time. For a while, they were Safety Harbor’s proudest accomplishment, left over from the days when horses and buggies parked beside them They were the perfect height for passengers to disembark. She also remembers how small the town was, and for quite a long time. “Back in the day, people were just different,” BJ says. “They were interested in what their neighbors were doing.”  

She enjoys seeing the families and children play in the park next to her shop. “As we were growing up we were involved in everything that happened in Safety Harbor. Mother and Daddy were active in everything in town, including the PTA. Everybody was—those were all fun times.“

McMullen Flower Shoppe was at one time called BJ’s Flower Basket. “It kind of evolved,” she says. And, according to BJ. whatever you call her shop, “depends on how old you are, how long you’ve been here.”