Why did couple leave Lake County to live in USSR? It’s part of Weirdlando

Lake County, located northwest of Orlando, is known as one of the most conservative areas of Central Florida. Politically, it’s been as deep red as a MAGA hat for as long as anyone can remember.

So it was shocking news in 1988 when a couple from Lake County decided to move to the reddest area of the world: the Soviet Union.

Yes, the USSR. The Reds. The “evil empire,” as Ronald Reagan called it (during a speech in Orlando, by the way). Even before the World Wide Web, this was world-wide news.

And it’s another tale in our series of strange local stories called Weirdlando.

This one begins with Theodore Branch, a 43-year-old Lake County man described as someone who liked to dream big, but also someone who couldn’t hold a job.

With visions (more likely, delusions) of landing a $50,000-a-year-job in Karl Marx’s Worker’s Paradise, Branch and his wife traded Leesburg for Leningrad.

The couple, and the Soviet propaganda machine, would tell the world they left the U.S. because of a breakdown in law and order, and a property deal that fell apart.

“It was simply a move of vengeance, a move of, ‘I’ll show you,’” said Wade Myers, a Gainesville doctor who was on a group tour of the USSR with the Lake County couple before they decided they weren’t coming home.

Myers said, “Here we were in 5-degree weather with 6 inches of snow on the ground, looking at people waiting in line 30 people deep just to get into the market, and the Branches are ready to live in this environment?”

The story

Here’s how Orlando Sentinel reporter Mike Oliver reported the story on our Jan. 20, 1988 front page:

Two weeks ago, Alice Branch received a letter from her husband’s cousin, Clarence Branch, who lives in Erie, Pa.

The letter read in part: Did you know that Teddy and Sharie went to the USSR? We have not heard from them in seven weeks. I guess their laws are different. He was going to call or write. Maybe they will find out what it is to have freedom.

Tuesday, Mrs. Branch heard the news reports of a Soviet announcement.

Theodore, 43, and Cheryl Branch, 40, had decided to seek political asylum in the Soviet Union. The Branches applied for and received political asylum in the Soviet Union, foreign ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said Tuesday. The couple was reported by family members to have left Nov. 14 for a tour of the Soviet Union after talking about wanting to live there.

“I think he’s crazy,” Alice Branch said. “I couldn’t believe it when I got the letter, but now they’re saying he just gave up the U.S.A.”

Gerasimov’s statement read in part: “In a letter to the authorities, they said it was their conviction that more attention is paid to law and order in the Soviet Union, that socialism opens real possibilities for everyone in society and that it is a more satisfactory alternative to capitalism.”

Alice Branch lives in Lakeside Village Mobile Home Park. Several years ago, Ted and Cheryl lived in a nearby mobile home with an uncle, Edwin Miller. “He lived here for years, but he maybe came over three times,” Mrs. Branch said. “They were loners.

“He never really held down a job very long. He’s the kind of guy that if you mention any subject, he knew it all. I’m afraid he’s going to get locked up over there in Russia.”

Said Mrs. Branch’s husband, Bert, “He had big ideas but he never could make them work.”

Work was a key word in the life of Ted and Cheryl Branch. Everything seemed to be working in their lives when he was station manager at radio WBGB-AM in Mount Dora. His wife was listed as music program director. When the station failed, work became elusive. Those who knew Branch said he became bitter.

The Soviets described the couple as mass communications experts.

In early 1986, the station was shut down by a judge because of failure to pay a bank loan. The station owed money to a variety of creditors and employees, including the Branches.

They sued in federal court and the Branches were awarded $6,500 plus attorney fees. But no money has been paid out yet, said Ronald Aicher, the court-appointed receiver of WBGB.

The experience apparently left Branch with some bitter feelings.

“He had a sour grapes kind of attitude,” said Jim Conway, owner of Western Auto in downtown Leesburg. Conway hired Branch on Feb. 7, 1986, and fired him less than three months later.

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“I probably kept him on longer than I should have,” Conway said. “He was always talking about suing somebody. He felt he was being cheated on his pay. It wasn’t just a casual thing. It seemed to be an obsession.”

The Branches were living at this time at Marietta Motel and Trailer Park in Leesburg.

“He was always dressing up in suits and carrying an attache case, pretending to be somebody,” said Nancy Bell, park manager. “He was always looking for a way to make some money.”

Branch was bouncing around from various odd jobs, she said, including delivering pizzas and selling tickets to a traveling circus.

“One time he came back from Washington, D.C., and said he talked to the Russians,” Bell said. “He said he could make $50,000 a year over there.”

Branch’s father, Clarence Branch of Erie, Pa., called his son’s decision to move to the Soviet Union “stupid.” He said Theodore and his wife lived with him for a while this past year.

He said if he could talk to his son “I think I’d tell him what a mistake he made. He should come back.”

Epilogue

Apparently the Branches agreed their move to the USSR was a mistake, and they came back in September 1988. Apparently, that too was a mistake.

As Oliver wrote in his follow-up story:

LaVera Branch said her son and his wife were angry at U.S. officials for not meeting them at the airport and not fulfilling promises of a job and an apartment. She said they may go back to the Soviet Union, where he worked in radio delivering propaganda broadcasts.

“He called me this morning,” Mrs. Branch said Friday. “It wasn’t his idea in the beginning to come back. But they [U.S. officials] said they would meet him, and they left him stranded with 10 pieces of luggage. He said they probably made a mistake in coming back here.”

Branch said her son told her that U.S.officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow promised him a job, an apartment and a health benefit plan if he returned to the United States.

U.S. State Department officials, however, strongly contradicted the Branches’ version of the story.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Friday the U.S. Embassy in Moscow offered the Branches only the same services available to any U.S. citizen abroad, which includes a repatriation loan to buy plane tickets to the nearest port of entry in the United States.

State Department officials said Friday they do not know where the Branches are and are not looking for them.