- October 3, 2024
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Claude Sisco Deen Jr., credited with almost single-handedly chronicling the history of Flagler County, died on Thursday, Aug. 31, at age 83.
“He made sure our history, our heritage, is preserved,” said Flagler County Attorney Al Hadeed. “He showed that we could teach all of Florida history from Flagler County — from ancient Timucuans to the role of the Spanish, the American Revolution, and continuing all the way to the present date. His fingerprints are behind all of our progress in this realm.”
Deen is a member of four founding families of Flagler County.
"His family was very, very involved in the early days of the county. They were important people in the turpentine industry and farming,” said Gloria Deen, Sisco Deen's third wife of nearly 20 years.
According to his website, flaglercountyfamilies.com, Deen's paternal grandparents moved with their families to what is now Flagler County in 1902 and 1907, and his maternal grandparents moved here in 1913 and 1917 — which was the year Flagler was designated as a county.
“His family legacy is long established,” said Ed Siarkowicz, the president of the Flagler County Historical Society. “There are many other old timers who claim that he is literally related to everyone. And I've seen that to be true. It seems that everyone that comes in from an established name of Flagler County also claims relation to Sisco.”
Deen graduated from Bunnell High School and Florida State University. He was a captain in the Air Force, serving in 1963-74. He also served in the Florida Air National Guard in 1975-79 and then served in the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force Reserves.
He was Flagler County's Veteran of the Year in 2017, the year of the county's centennial.
After active service, he became a home builder. In the early 1990s he began focusing on Flagler County genealogy and then its history.
“Sisco was a real historian. He's someone who was very accurate," said Carl Laundrie, Flagler County's former communications director who worked closely with Deen on the Flagler County Centennial Committee. “He was a great guy and a tireless worker. And Flagler County is going to reap the benefits of that work for many years to come.”
Laundrie said that unlike some local histories, Deen's records include Black history.
“He talked to people of color, got their backgrounds. He recorded and did as much as he could to preserve and record Black history. So his work isn't just a whitewash history, it's a complete history of all the residents of Flagler County,” Laundrie said.
Laundrie was a reporter and photographer at the Flagler Tribune who helped preserve bound editions of the paper and photographic negatives from the archives when the Tribune was sold to the Daytona Beach News-Journal in 1981. Deen later had the papers digitized, and they are now accessible online.
Churches have deacons that are pillars of support. Sisco was absolutely one of our main historians and a pillar of our community.”
— ED SIARKOWICZ, Flagler County Historical Society president
“Churches have deacons that are pillars of support,” Siarkowicz said. "Sisco was absolutely one of our main historians and a pillar of our community.”
Deen and Hadeed met in the early 1990s, when Hadeed was serving as the county’s point-person for efforts to preserve historically and environmentally important lands.
“He knew I was doing this, and he was enormously helpful,” Hadeed said. “… I was looking for funding to preserve the history, and he was trying to capture it. … I was preserving the lands, and he was chronicling the history.”
One of Deen's many contributions, Hadeed said, was connecting the county with the descendants of Gen. Joseph Hernandez, who owned a plantation at the site that is now Bings Landing County Park — a National Register of Historic Places site. Hernandez was also the first Hispanic U.S. Congress member.
“Combining his skills as a historian, as an archivist, and as a genealogist, he brought the descendants of General Hernandez to Flagler to celebrate their ancestor at a public event,” Hadeed said. “The respect and honor that he bestowed upon them, their ancestor, led them to provide us very important artifacts that they were holding concerning his life and legacy, both as a leader in the territory of Florida and after its statehood, his military career, his congressional career — very important artifacts that they donated to us.”
Those artifacts, including Hernandez’s congressional china, are on display in the county’s Government Services Building.
“He made that connection because he was a many-skilled person … not attempting to draw attention to himself, very low-key, and therefore was able to really accomplish quite a lot,” Hadeed said.
Deen spearheaded the creation of the research library annex behind the historic Holden House Museum on East Moody Boulevard in Bunnell. Both buildings belong to the Flagler County Historical Society. The annex contains records like obituaries, newspaper clippings, early maps and artifacts collected by Deen and others.
Because of his reputation and the respect people had for him, there were people in the community who were coming out and donating heirlooms to the county, sometimes unsolicited.”
— AL HADEED, Flagler County attorney
“Because of his reputation and the respect people had for him, there were people in the community who were coming out and donating heirlooms to the county, sometimes unsolicited,” Hadeed said. “They would come in and they would say, ‘Oh my gosh, this stuff you guys are doing is great.’”
Siarkowicz said that building will be renamed the Sisco Deen Research Library.
Siarkowicz said he first discussed the honor with Deen three years ago when Deen was first diagnosed with cancer. But Deen said he didn't think any living person should have something named after them.
"He said, 'When I go, then you can name it after me,’" Siarkowicz said. “Last week he came in with his wife and I said, ‘We don't want you to go anywhere, but are you still onboard with renaming the annex research library after you?” And he said, ‘Yep, but it has to be after I'm gone.’ We're going to get formal board approval this week, but we'll be renaming the building.”
Hadeed said Deen was “very engaging, very personable.”
Deen is survived by his wife, Gloria; three sons, Devin, Brian and Sisco; two stepsons, Seth and David Shortlidge; six grandchildren; and three stepgrandchildren.
Gloria Deen said her husband was placed in hospice care on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
"The nurses were making him comfortable, and he started telling them jokes, making the nurses laugh,” Gloria Deen said. “That was Sisco.”
Devin Deen, Sisco's oldest son, flew in from New Zealand and spent Wednesday night with his father, she said.
A Celebration of Life will be held in late September and will be announced soon, Glorida Deen said.
Managing Editor Jonathan Simmons contributed to this story.
