Dave Jensen remembered by Captiva community
A ray of sunshine, who left an everlasting imprint on everyone he met, left this world “too soon.”
“Our brother Dave passed away on the 20th (of February). It was a very big surprise. He was in good shape, healthy and out all day picking olives,” John Jensen said. “He was a great brother, a great friend. I think he was very caring. He was very involved in the community with all the boards he was on. He was always smiling. He was known for his laugh. People gravitated towards him because he was always happy. It gave a good feeling. He was very caring, understanding and wanted to help people and make sure everyone had a great time when staying with us,” John Jensen said.
Vanessa “Queenie” Viglione said Dave was 100 percent pure joy.
“He revered his parents. He cherished his brothers and sister. Dave was never short of ideas. He kept volumes and volumes of hand-written, spiral-bound notebooks of his ideas and how to execute them, but encouraging and supporting other people’s dreams took priority over his own,” she said. “To me, Dave was a giant, gentle, spiritual bear.”
Above all else, Viglione said Dave was genuine.
John said his parents first visited Captiva Island in 1973 before buying property, which became Jensen on the Gulf in 1976, followed by property for the marina in 1977.
“Our dad went in with some partners and bought it with the intention of flipping it in a couple of years. My dad was the managing partner. We were from Michigan. He would fly down once a month to oversee everything and make sure everything was running right,” John said.
When he was having a hard time finding managers, John and Dave were asked if they were interested. John said they were both in their low to mid 20s and did not having anything else going on at the time, so they traveled to Captiva with the intention of running the properties until it was sold.
“We were there for a couple of years and really liked it,” John said. “He (his father) went to his partner to see if he could buy it out and they accepted.”
President and Chairman of the board for Sanibel Captiva Beach Resorts Tony Lapi said he met Dave’s parents as they were locals at their Crow’s Nest in the early 1980s. He said after Dave’s dad passed away, the boys took over running the property, which is when he really got to know all three boys well.
“They were always very helpful when we did our Fourth of July fishing derby here. They always lent me fishing poles. We’ve had a good relationship over the years. We were always good competing neighbors,” Lapi said.
Viglione said she met Dave in 1989 when she stayed in cottage five at Jensen’s Twin Palm with her sister and brother-in-law.
“I remember my sister saying ‘you have to meet Dave’ and when I did it was like reuniting with a friend I thought I’d lost,” she said. “In hindsight, probably a lot of people felt that way when they met him, but when I look at a photo my sister snapped of the very first time we met, there is a visible energy.”
For the next five years, the three of them returned to Captiva staying two nights with their grandmother and family friend Johnny.
“I lived in California at that time and Dave and I quickly became pen pals. We built our relationship through handwritten letters, poetry, magazine cutouts and the occasional funny surprise box of thrift-store hats, or cases of new on the market dental supplies,” Viglione said, due to her being a dental assistant in those days.
John said they realized how lucky they were coming from Detroit to be on “this beautiful island” and really appreciated the opportunity.
Five years later, John said they needed help. Their brother Jimmy, who was a bartender at Mucky Duck, decided to join in running the property.
“The three of us ran it until Feb. 16 when it was sold. The new owners (Royal Shell Family) is a great company and the transition has been very smooth,” John said, adding that the new owners have opened their arms and invited the family to come and visit with guests when they wanted.
Viglione said Dave was “ecstatic” when learning about the sale of the business. She said he wrote a letter to the new owners, which was to be mailed the day before he died, but sat on the dashboard of their car for a week before she could think straight enough to put it in the letterbox.
“Dave expressed how happy he was they were the ones to now carry the Twin Palm Legacy. And, for the three days after the sale, up to the day before he died, Dave would get a huge smile on his face and say ‘finally they — John and Jimmy — are going to have their own freedom’ and ‘ now they get a chance to do exactly what they really want to do too,'” she said.
John said he loved working hand-in-hand with his brothers, as they all took care of different things. John said he took care of the marina, Jimmy took care of the music and Dave handled the cottages and maintenance.
“We all liked being outside, the water and boating. We couldn’t have asked for a better life, or job, how we spent 44 years of our lives right there,” John said.
He said he was really happy Dave had the opportunity to live in Italy for the last year and a half of his life.
In October 2019, Dave and Viglione moved to Italy with the full encouragement from his brothers and sister.
“Dave was at the place in time where he could pursue his own dreams, which included the freedom of travel, love of meeting new friends and the adventures that spring from that, and the peace he’d always found in gardening,” she said.
Every day in Italy brought Dave some sort of joy from having an old-fashioned shave at the village barber, manual labor in the garden alongside their 91-year old neighbor, picking grapes to make homemade wine with an antique press that came with their house, enjoying live music from their friend Giampiero and helping friends harvest their olives.
Lapi said Dave was good at coercing him into different organizations on Captiva, one of which was the Captiva Community Panel. With being on Captiva for 45 years, Lapi said Dave also got him into the Captiva Island Historical Society, which Dave was one of the founding members.
“For a guy to recognize how important history is. He and Queenie were instrumental in getting that going. I connected that way with him,” he said.
Captiva Island Historical Society Vice President and Treasurer Mike Boris said he found his way to Florida because of the Jensen brothers. He said dear college friends used to hang out with the Jensen brothers, which is how they discovered Captiva 23 years ago.
“Dave and I were a part of the historical society,” Boris said. “He loved history as much as he loved everything else. When he moved to Italy he resigned from everything, but the historical society. We Zoomed all the time. Queenie is still doing the achieves for us in Italy.”
One of his fondest memories is the Marching Mullet Parade, which was always done at the drop of the hat. Boris said the marches would always take place before sunset.
Viglione said the marches always included championing the veterans who would serve as grand marshal, rallying the music director at Fort Myers High School to encourage student participation, organizing hot dog cookouts for band participants after party and supporting clergy from Captiva Chapel by the Sea to officiate and recite the Marching Mullet Benediction.
In addition, Dave was also on the boards of the Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce and the Captiva Erosion Prevention District, a position he served for 25 years. He was also a founding director of the Totch Brown International Songwriter Festival, which turned into the Island Hopper Songwriter Fest.
Lapi and Dave would also get together, just to talk about different things going on in life.
“It was just easy. Dealing with him was easy. It was hard to ever say no to Dave,” he said. “We just had a cool relationship. I miss him. There’s a big hole out of the heart of Captiva. It pulls on us hard. It’s a tough thing. We will miss him.”
Lapi said Dave was a kind soul.
“Anytime you were around Dave you couldn’t help but smile. He was just that way. He had such a beautiful personality, you couldn’t help but love the guy. He was warm and friendly, always genuine. What you saw is what you got,” Lapi said.
Some of the fondest memories on Captiva for Viglione is something she can still hear, “how Dave would start calling out the nicknames he had for our cats as his bicycle approached our driveway at the end of his workday … ‘Woody vonWoodrows’ and ‘Moosegouzo di Buddos.'”
And still playing in her ears is Dave’s well-used bike that would send out a teeth-grinding horrible shriek each time he’d push the left pedal.
“People would ask ‘why doesn’t he oil that thing,’ but he loved it! And I always knew when he’d be on his way to a CEPD meeting, or to check on something at Jensen’s on the Gulf because I could hear when he pulled out of Twin Palms,” Viglione said.
Another found memory from Captiva was the two of them making bread once a week using sourdough his mother gifted to them by a friend shortly after Viglione and Dave moved in together.
“Dave would find quiet, unusual for him, in the meditative process of kneading the dough with his big paws and after I’d baked it, he’d jump on his bike to deliver warm, crusty loaves, often with a jar of our front-yard honey, to friends,” Viglione said.
Dave left an everlasting imprint on the lives of many he grew to know on Captiva.
Current Captiva Community Panel President Jay Brown said to him Dave was the “Captiva brand.” He said Dave was the symbol of what Captiva wants to be all about — friendly, compassionate, passionate and jovial with no pretenses.
“He was Mr. Captiva to me. He was just a good friend to everyone. Everyday you saw him he made you smile and your day was better,” Brown said. “It’s a tremendous loss to our community and I’m going to miss him.”
He first met Dave when he began coming to Captiva in 1998 due to someone suggesting he go to Jensen’s to buy shrimp for bait. The trip ended with Brown and Dave shooting the breeze for half an hour.
“He told me about Captiva and we were friends ever since,” he said.
The two men spent time together on the Captiva Community Panel for many years.
“I think I probably saw him almost every day of my life,” Brown said. “My fondest memory is just seeing him always on his bicycle. He always wore a bandana on his head. He was always smiling. He was just a sunny guy. He was just one in a million guy.”
Captiva Community Panel Administrator Ken Gooderham said Dave was just a wonderful person who really cared about the island, which he put his heart and soul into.
“He did so many wonderful things for Captiva. He touched everyone’s lives in so many wonderful ways. He was a remarkable human being,” he said.
One memory that stuck out was after Hurricane Charley impacted the island. Gooderham said Dave was pushing through with a smile on his face. When asked how he did it, Dave’s reply was just “put one foot in front of the other.”
Owner and CEO of Stilwell Enterprises and Restaurants Group Sandy Stilwell said she too got to know Dave better when they were on the Captiva Community Panel together. She said he was always ready to help anyway he could, always with positive messages.
Stilwell said the most heartwarming memory happened after Hurricane Charley. She said they did not have any air conditioners, which led to Dave offering one of their cottages with a generator for her to stay.
“So sweet they were willing to give me a cottage, so much like the Jensen brothers to do that,” Stilwell said.
She said Dave was taken way too early, which made a real impact on her. Stilwell said it was a defining moment for her, as he worked so hard and made his dream come true moving to Italy.
“Life is short, live life to the fullest,” she said. “Dave left a legacy, the brothers, the father made a huge impact on the quality of life on Captiva. We want his memory to live on. He left us way too soon. My deepest condolences to the entire family,” Stilwell said.