ORLANDO, Fla. – In celebration of Women’s History Month, we want to introduce you to a local woman who has borne witness to Central Florida’s transformation over the past 50 years from a town full of orange groves to a top tourist spot.
Ann Polasek is now 99 years old and still active in community events, real estate and as a day trader on the stock market. But she first moved to Orlando in 1960 for her husband John’s job at Martin Marietta. “People didn’t have pools.
There was no decent store to go to to buy clothes, people would actually go to Georgia to buy clothes. No Colonial Drive. The only store we had was Ivy’s,” said Polasek. “There was a Woolworths and there were a couple little boutique stores and they would carry maybe eight or