March 1, 2018 Tampa Tribune

Shirley Weldon Breck Sparrow Jicks, a former socialite, debutante died early yesterday morning at the age of 88 in her sleep of natural causes at her Tampa home. She was born on January 12, 1930 in Tampa, graduated from the Tampa Academy (Finishing school) in 1948. In 1946 at age 16, She was crowned Gasparilla Queen (the youngest title holder) and attended nearly every Gasparilla Festival since, the last being this past January. She was a Miss Tampa in 1950 and was a semi-finalist in the Miss Florida Pageant. She retired from competing in pageants and six months later she married Bruce Breck who died in Korea in 1953. They had no children. In 1959 she married John Sparrow and had three children, triplets Jack (Angelica), Brenda (Jake) Epson and Cassie (Will) Turner.. They later divorced.. In 1975 she married Donald Jicks who died in 1995. Besides her 3 children, she is survived by 10 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren, one that was born a couple of months ago. Ex-husband John Sparrow died in 2015.

Shirley loved boating and was a member of the Tampa Yacht Club since her youth. She also enjoyed, cooking and singing and rescuing stray dogs. She was in the choir at the St. Andrew Episcopal church since childhood. She also went back to college in the mid-1960's and graduated from Tampa Episcopal College with a business degree. She owned a woman's clothing store for 3 decades.

A viewing will be held 6-8 pm on Friday, March 2nd at the Melvin Jones Funeral Home. The funeral service will be held on Saturday March 3rd at 10am at the St. Andrew Episcopal Church with the Reverend Mary Boltz officiating. Burial will be at the Tampa Memorial Ceremony after the service.

Following the burial, lunch will be served at the Tampa Marina.

Donations may be given to the Tampa No-Kill Dog Shelter or the Tampa Marina Hospital Fund.

Jack Sparrow read the obituary that his sister Brenda had written up.

The two were sitting in the living room of their mother's home.

"Sounds good to me." he said.

"Did I tell you that I saw the pirate spirit appear shortly before mom died." said Cassie.

"No, but he shows up in good times and bad. Usually you are the one that makes his appearances to."

Early morning December 2017

A reunion of the Kings and Queen of the Gasparilla festival was planned during the festival week. They were to be on a float in the parade. News Reporter Anna Jones was getting some history of the Kings and Queen.

"My grandfather and father filmed a lot of the Gasparilla festival back in the day (1946 till the early 1980's), so you have a lot of material here." said Shirley as she led the reporter into a room which had old home movies which had been converted to DVD's. It wasn't until the late 1950's that there was sound on them. This is back in 1946 when I won the pageant."

"Didn't your two daughters also win the Gasparilla Pageant?"

"Yes, Cassie won it in 1973 and Brenda won in 1976. Cassie was the youngest winner at age 15. She was determined that she was going to beat me age wise which she did by a couple of weeks. Brenda was 18 years old when she won the pageant.?

"It will be easy for you to find things as everything is in chronological order. "

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Jiles."

Shirley left and went to another part of the house. A couple of hours later it was time for lunch. Anna had found some very interesting footage of the parade and the pageant. While she was looking, Jack Sparrow came down.

"Hello, Jack."

"Hello, Ann, I know that you are doing research on the Gasparilla History. Let me tell you some things. I actually knew Gasparilla. Never did battle with him but he did exist."

Ann laughed.

"Oh, come on Jack, you weren't even alive back then. Are you play a joke on me?"

"Oh yes, I was, the current Jack Sparrow wasn't but I was. I'm his grandfather (5 times removed), I don't know why but I'm sent down here for every major event that occurs in the Sparrow family.

Then Jack Sparrow disappeared in front of her right before Shirley came into the room.

"Do you want to join me and Mary for lunch, Anna. If you aren't able to, I will understand as I know you are busy.".

Anna decided to have lunch with the women. She would get a lot more insights into the past history of the Gasparilla Festival. Mary Brent Larson was Shirley's best friend from elementary school. She was also her maid of honor at her first wedding.

The lunch was a very casual affair out on the patio. It was a beautiful day and the weather was mild. The lunch was turkey sandwiches on pita bread with a fruit bowl.

"In all the years of my life, I only missed two years of the parade. The triplets was born the day of the parade at Tampa General Hospital. I left shortly thereafter to live in Eastpoint. The other time was when I left their father."

"Dreadful place." said Mary shaking her head.

"Well, I wasn't there very long. I didn't fit in just like John didn't fit it in Tampa. Very different people, nice people for the most part but, I just didn't fit in. We moved there shortly after the triplets was born. I left shortly after I found him in bed with the tramp who later dumped him for someone else. I was happy when that happened to him a couple of years later.

Ann Rodgers knew the whole story. So did the rest of Tampa society. Back in the 1950's what had happened was scandalous. Very scandalous. Most women probably wouldn't have been forgiven back then, but within a year, the scandal was mostly forgotten, but spoken of in hushed tones. For a very long time Shirley Jiles was judged. She didn't date for nearly 10 years because of it. The men who were eligible were polite to her, but avoided her like the plague as far as dating went.

The lights went off and on and then the TV set came up. It was a pirates movie.

"Jack Sparrow I want you to stop it right now. You are disturbing me and my guests. Stop it right now said Shirley in a very stern manner.

"I saw him, Mrs. Jiles.. He talked to me about Gasparilla."

"Sometimes he's a very annoying ghost."

It was interesting looking at some of the photos of the pageants. Shirley and Cassie had a very strong resemblance to each other. Shirley was about 5''8 slim built with dark brown hair and green eyes. Cassie was slightly taller with the dark brown hair and green eyes. Looked like clones. Brenda on the other hand looked nothing like her mother and sister. She stood about 5'11 and had black hair and dark brown eyes. She wasn't slim but she wasn't heavy either. She looked like her father as did Jack.

"My daughters are very different people as you can see. Brenda is outgoing and Cassie is but is somewhat shy around others. The pageants Cassie participated in were good for her as she gained more self-confidence. Brenda could take it or leave it as far as pageants go. Back in the day they were fun, nowadays well, it's so different. So competitive as everything is nowadays. Neither Cassie and Brenda had pageant experience when they entered the Gasparilla Queen competition. Despite their limited experience they did quite well. I don't think today it would be as easy.

"Do you compete in the Miss America pageant?"

"No. When I won the Gasparilla pageant, I was too young to compete in the Miss American pageant as I was 16 years old. When I was 20 years old I won the Miss Tampa pageant and competed in the Miss Florida pageant in 1950 where I placed in the semi-finalist. No, I never completed in the Miss America pageant.