Mack Cleveland

Mack Norman Cleveland, Jr. (July 9, 1924 – October 17, 2010), was an attorney from Sanford in Seminole County, Florida, who served as a Democrat in both houses of the Florida State Legislature between 1953 and 1965. A Sanford native, Cleveland was the son of Mack Cleveland, Sr. (1898–1980) and the late Lois Shiflet Cleveland. In 1942, he graduated from Seminole High School in Sanford and then attended the University of Florida in Gainesville until called for military duty. Cleveland fought in the United States Army Air Corps in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. During the Korean War, he began service in the United States Air Force Reserve, which extended from 1951 to 1964. As a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 1953 to 1963, Cleveland in 1957 attained the rank of Speaker Pro Tempore. Thereafter, he was a state senator from 1963 to 1965. Cleveland left politics to devote his later years full-time to his law practice. He was the general counsel for his alma mater, Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, where he had been both an undergraduate in the Class of 1949 and recipient of the Juris Doctor degree in 1951. Cleveland spent fifty-six years as a lawyer, having retired in 2007 to Longwood, also in Seminole County. His wife, Mary Anne Cleveland, whom he married in 1984, when he was sixty, said that he was "an old-time lawyer [who] counseled people" and often did not charge for a consultation. After his time as an elected official, Cleveland switched his partisan affiliation to Republican. A long-time member of the First Baptist Church of Sanford, he later joined the Longwood Hills Congregational Church. He was an avid golfer. Cleveland was affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce, the Masonic lodge, the Shriners, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Jaycees. Cleveland died at the age of eighty-six of advanced Parkinson's disease. In addition to his wife, Cleveland was survived by three stepchildren from her previous marriage: Darvin Boothe, Jr., of Tampa, Rebekah Boothe Corley of Sanford, and Robert Boothe of Orlando; a sister, Mary Cleveland McCoy of DeBary, Florida, and five grandchildren. Before his death, Cleveland deposited an oral history on his life with the Florida Legislative Research Center and Museum in Tallahassee.