Unusual 1895 travel memoir

Partial cover of Rev. Anderson's book.
Photo credit: DocSouth

I tend to consider legitimate self-publishing a fairly recent phenomenon. Something that started when Amazon went up against the publishing gatekeepers. Before that, there were only vanity presses that most writers shied away from. 

Ditto for my thoughts about authors marketing their own work. Both traditionally published and indie published writers must do that today. But they also did so in the past.

Writers have been underwriting their own works for a long time. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens come to mind among the biggies. Authors have long promoted their own works, too. I recently found an unknown-to-me, intriguing example: a book published in 1895 by a Georgia minister named Robert Anderson. He undertook months-long trips to market and sell his self-published memoir about his travels throughout the Eastern United States.

He wrote Rev. Robert Anderson's Surpriser when he was 75 years old. It's an autobiographical account of the people and places he encountered on trips through Florida, other Southern states, and Northern states in 1893 and 1894. Everywhere he stopped, he actively promoted and sold his books and also preached when invited. He found selling more difficult in Northern cities than in Southern ones.

For purposes of this blog, I'll share some of Anderson's experiences in Florida. But it's Anderson himself I want to learn more about. 

The book's unsigned Preface says Anderson was born in 1819 and is "is among the oldest colored men now living in Georgia." The Preface also states that the book was currently in its 5th edition and providing the author his only means of income. His advanced age hampered his ability to conduct his life's work, the ministry.

Other biographical gems in the Preface point out that Anderson became a citizen in 1838, was employed by banks in Macon, Ga., in his younger days and was known throughout Georgia and other parts of the South. 

Anderson himself tells readers, in his book's subtitle, that he "united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1839." He seems to have had a lengthy career in ministry as well as the jobs in four banks in Macon. 

Anderson also writes of having a guardian after he purchased himself and his wife for $1,500 during the days of slavery. He shares this matter-of-factly as part of an anecdote about an encounter during his travels. Otherwise, the reader learns little of his early life or how he felt about social conditions. 

That $1,500 was an incredible sum of money in the 19th century. Did Anderson earn it at the banks? In ministry? Later in the book, he comments that he also bought his mother and grandmother out of bondage. Many questions are unspoken and unanswered. How did he become a good writer in an era when education was denied to most Blacks in the South? Why was he so prominent as an elder? How did he come to have such a widespread reputation? 

Early in the book, Anderson thanks the many people who bought previous editions of his book and lists each buyer by name and state. Buyers were generous - many paid the modern equivalent of $30 to $50 per copy. 

Buyers were also often white. Anderson rightly said that was because Blacks didn't have as much disposable income. He also stressed that Southern Blacks needed education and a financial step up. But he also expected people, both white and Black, to act respectably and responsibly and to get along peaceably. He is firm in his opinions and his moral stance.

Anderson says he encountered "bitters and sweets" during his 1893 and 1894 travels, but the book overall has a positive tone. Still, there were some tensions. In Boston, Anderson was accused of being on a public relations journey to boost Georgia's image and contradict what Ida B. Wells was writing about lynchings in the South. He denied the charge in the same measured tones he uses throughout the book. 

Other receptions were more cordial, particularly in the South. Anderson comes across as a truly Godly man. He stayed with church ministers and congregation members whenever possible and did numerous guest preachings. He traversed color lines and said many people gave him money even when they didn't buy a book.

In Florida, one lady who purchased a book also sold Anderson oranges at a penny apiece. The woman then gave him money for freight charges needed to ship the oranges to his family in Georgia. One minister and his wife refused to accept payment for boarding Anderson for 11 days in Jacksonville. 

St. Augustine's sights impressed Anderson, particularly Fort Marion (as Castillo de San Marcos was known at that time), Flagler's Hotel Ponce de Leon, and the city's paved streets. "If you want to see heaven on Earth, come to St. Augustine," he writes. "I never saw such splendor in my life."

The splendor, right now, to me, is that we have Rev. Anderson's travel memoir. I felt I started to get to know him, and I wanted to learn more. I wish there was a biography or that he left a full autobiography.

Read the entire Surpriser text online at Documenting the American South, also known as Doc South. The website's about page explains DocSouth as a digital publishing initiative by the library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The site's collection is amazing. Prepare to spend a lot of time there.

Finding the light

Circle of Light takes place in 1898 Florida

Bloom where you're planted. Easy to say. Hard to do.

That's the tagline for my latest novella, Circle of Light: A Persimmon Hollow Christmas Novella. The phrase describes the inner and outer journey of the heroine, Clara, who is newly arrived in the fictional frontier town of Persimmon Hollow in 1898. She's far from happy about her family's move to the small town in the Florida wilderness. 

Circle of Light is set during Advent and Christmastide and the season plays a big role in the story. Advent is a season of light and hope. Clara tries to embrace those feelings as December unfolds. Her family and newfound acquaintances try to help her help herself. That includes a young man who offers to show Clara the sunny side of life in a near-wilderness.

But Clara, at first, stubbornly clings to memories of what she considers the more civilized world she left behind in her northern city home.

There are personal reasons for Clara's resistance to change. You'll have to read the novella to find out what they are. But period newspapers shed light on some external reasons why she might have bemoaned leaving what she called civilization. 

Persimmon Hollow in 1898 was a still-growing settlement populated by earthy pioneer people. Larger Northern cities had more resources and residents. That urbanity is reflected in news media such as a December 1, 1898, issue of The Catholic Telegraph newspaper. 

The Catholic Telegraph was based in Cincinnati, Ohio, which had a population of more than 300,000 people in 1898. The city was cosmopolitan compared to Persimmon Hollow's 1,400 residents and sandy streets paved with pine straw.

The newspaper's women's page decreed the following as fashionable for winter 1898-1899:

• New shell combs that were curved to fit the head and worn directly "under the knot arranged high." These combs also supported heavy winter hats.
• Expensive buttons and belt buckles that were "a distinct feature of autumn and winter gowning." They were so trendy that "almost every stylish toilet or costume has one or the other or both."
• Without doubt, "white gloves are to be worn with everything this year." The type of fabric depended on the use: chamois for daily street wear, high-sheen cotton with decorative black topstitching for upscale street wear, and plain high-sheen cotton or kid for evening.
• A new trend from France, where French women were "wearing pointed wraps of cloth to match their gowns."

Catholic women in Persimmon Hollow in 1898 may have received the Catholic Telegraph through the mail and read about these trends. However, most items described as fashionable weren't seen on an average day in Persimmon Hollow. 

Some of the newspaper's household hints were more applicable to a frontier town. Some, though, weren't. The small settlement probably didn't have whole nutmeg available in small local stores. The tip to always start grating at the flower end wouldn't have been helpful.

More fitting for the frontier setting was a suggestion for cleaning flatirons in warm water, using a half tablespoon of melted lard to every two quarts of water. Readers also were advised to soak lamp wicks in vinegar and thoroughly dry them before use. "They will draw well and will not smoke."  

Finally, this odd (to modern ears) tip might have caused heroine Clara to raise her hands in despair for remembering amenities she'd left behind. Streetcars were unknown in Persimmon Hollow. But city dwellers reading the newspaper were told to do the following when riding a streetcar: "Practice deep, full breathing, which robs even bad air of half its dangers."

Persimmon Hollow had the edge over all cities in air quality, for it was pure and healthful. The town had other charms, too, which Clara gradually comes to realize with help from her faith, family, friends, and a love interest. My historical romances have HEAs (Happily Ever After) endings, and Circle of Light is no exception.

Backwoods life, no filter

Florida residents sit with their guests in front of their
homestead's main structure. This photo is from an 
1892 issue of Demorest's Magazine.

By the 1890s, Florida's cities offered growing lists of amenities that eased daily life for residents. Not so for people who lived far from urban centers. Some Florida Crackers deep in the backwoods had primitive living arrangements. 

One of the clearest examples of this, that I've come across, is an 1892 article written by archeologist Clarence Bloomfield Moore for Demorest's Family Magazine. Moore made yearly trips to Florida for sport activities or to conduct antiquities research. Each year he stopped to visit a Cracker friend who lived on the shores of Lake Harney in the east central part of the state. The1892 article is about one of these visits.

You can read the magazine article on the Florida Memory website. My focus in this post is on the living conditions of a family identified only as Captain Mansfield, his "old woman" (no name or relationship provided), a hired worker named Grant, and an unnamed young woman with a baby. The young mother was introduced as a relative of the Captain's.

The Mansfield homestead consisted of the following:

• a one-room cabin made of palmetto thatch, with a palmetto lean-to attached to the back;

• a palmetto-roofed barn with a loft and with walls made of animal skins;

• an outdoor, open-air kitchen that had a roof, if you can call it that. You can see what I mean in the photo at the end of this post. 

Moore said the assembled group lived contentedly on the lakeshore in this ramshackle collection of buildings. Mansfield and the older woman slept in the one-room cabin, the younger woman and the baby resided in the lean-to, and the hired worker slept in the barn loft. 

If you look at the group photo, everyone does seem somewhat laid-back as they listen to the Captain tell stories of Seminole War days. He was a Civil War veteran as well as a Seminole War veteran. To me, he doesn't look old enough to have fought in any but the third of the Seminole Wars. But looks can deceive. The "old woman" appears quite aged in a close-up photo you'll see if you read the article.

In Moore's story, the Captain and the older woman come across as likeable, talkative, and welcoming to their visitors. Moore and/or his traveling companions (not sure who's who among the visitors) seem equally at home in the photo, accepted even by one of the guard dogs who initially greeted the Northerners with bared teeth. The young woman and hired worker don't have voices in the story but are included in the group photo.

Neighbors were nonexistent. Moore says the homestead was the only habitation around the entire lake, a nine-mile body of water with 11 miles of shoreline. The nearest thing to a settlement was a small community named Geneva, three miles away. Even today, Geneva's population is less than 3,000 people.

I can't even begin to understand the work required just to survive -- just to make sure there was enough food, water, and shelter to sustain life on the homestead. I can't imagine cooking in what passed for a kitchen. Or sleeping surrounded by palmetto fronds that harbored all kinds of insects. How did the family ride out storms and deal with year-round mosquitos? What happened if they became ill? To say this family lived close to nature is an understatement.

I also want to know more about the relationships among what, at first glance, appears to be a mismatched assortment of people. Ones who looked out for each other in wild surroundings. Who heard bird call in the morning and saw star-studded skies at night. Who shared a hard life with a seeming contentment that escapes so many in our modern age. 

This photo of a Florida homesteader
 in her kitchen is from an 1892 issue
of Demorest's Magazine.

Read between lines

Regional fairs were popular events in 
pioneer Florida. (Gerri Bauer photo)

About 260,000 people lived in Florida in 1879. They rattled around in the state's 67,760 square miles. For comparison, the state's current population is about 22 million -- 22,000,000 versus 260,000. 

The state in 1879 was basically empty. Regional social or other events were limited. People were more focused on survival. And intrastate travel was challenging and time-consuming.

But residents flocked to gatherings that did take place and made the most of them. That's clear in an 1879 Florida Agriculturist newspaper article about that year's Central Florida Fair. Which, for some reason, took place in Tallahassee in northern Florida.

I don't know about fairs where you live, but in my area entries into the county fair food division have dwindled over the years. They're almost down to nothing. Imagine my surprise when I read that Mrs. W.H. Gibson entered "355 articles, all prepared by the same lady" at the 1879 fair. Her entries included 117 types of preserves and 82 varieties of jelly. 

Even weirder is how one item, a jar of watermelon citron preserves, was noted to be 25 years old. Did competitors save their items and enter them year after year in one giant pile? They must have. Because Mrs. Gibson wasn't an outlier.

Mrs. W.H. Scott entered 220 kinds of jellies, preserves, syrups, marmalades and other items. Mrs. T.J. Young bemoaned how she only had 116 varieties to enter because several jars broke during her journey to Tallahassee from Thomasville, Georgia. Other things were too difficult to transport. I wonder what they were. Among the items that did make it were an intricately carved and preserved watermelon rind basket and seven kinds of wine.

The fresh fruit and vegetable divisions were also popular categories. In these areas, people seemed to enter a lesser number of goods per person. Several outstanding competitors, most of them men, were listed by name and type of entry or entries.

This was a time when members of local black populations often weren't dignified by given name in or out of print. I was glad to read that, "Three very large and fine pumpkins were put on exhibition by Becky Pope, a colored woman of this county."

Not sure why there was a need to mention race. But it was a very different time, almost 150 years distant from our 21st century eyes. I credit the reporter for including Becky's name and the editors for keeping it in the story. Their actions gave her an identity and preserved it through time. 

Read between the lines, though. The precise wording could have constituted a slight snub or simply an acceptance of local tradition. Becky's name is presented in a less-respectful way than dictated by the era's formal naming conventions. The women who entered all the preserves were each identified by their husband's initials. That's how married women were named in public and in print at that time and into the 20th century. Names of unmarried, presumably white, competitors at the 1879 fair were given in full and preceded by the title Miss. 

We don't know if Becky was single or married, but we do know her full name. That's more than we can say for the married women whose preserves and jellies were entered under their husbands' names. We don't know anything personal at all about the lady who entered 355 items except that her husband's name was W.H. Gibson.

All in all, I was intrigued to see the acknowledgement of black competitors in print only two years after Reconstruction ended. Another part of the article reported that "Several loaves of light bread and other articles in this department were entered by colored women for prizes, against their fairer competitors."

The use of the word "fairer" instead of "white" could have been an intended slight against the black women. Or not. Maybe that was the only way the reporter was able to mention the black women's entries and get it past the editors. Ditto for how Becky Pope was named. I'm a retired journalist. I know how the profession operates  - or operated decades ago, anyway. I don't consider today's bias-driven news to be real journalism.

Back to the fair. No word on who won the bread competition, although all entries were deemed "very creditable." The reporter mentioned that an awards list was issued separately by the fair.

The article goes on and on, listing numerous people - primarily men - and their entries of fruits, vegetables, grains and livestock. The fair must have been a fairly recent initiative, because it was proclaimed a "complete success" and everyone believed it had a bright future. I wish the future of race relations had proved as promising. And I wish I knew the given names of those ladies who produced such marvelous preserves.

A tug, a grunt, and a hope for the best

Central Florida Railroad Museum 
(Gerri Bauer photo)

I love train travel. And sometimes I project the idea of today's comfortable rides onto the conditions available in Florida's pioneer years. Early settlers would have a good laugh at that. 

Trains rolled over the steamboat industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Florida. Those early rides were no picnics. That came clear to me on a recent visit to the Central Florida Railroad Museum in Winter Garden. The city is part of the Orlando metro area but has a beautiful and walkable downtown historic district.

The railroad museum is well worth a visit. I particularly liked the displays of different railroad lines' cutlery and dishware. Those kind of details bring home for me the day-to-day living in a specific time. The dishware, as you can imagine, was thick, sturdy stoneware. Some was decorated simply but others featured elaborate floral designs. The collection is varied and includes examples from a wide range of railroad lines including Amtrak.

But the first short-line, early trains to pass through the state weren't serving dinner. They primarily transported citrus, although people used them too. There was nothing fancy about these railroads. That's depicted clearly in the numerous photographs of rail cars, equipment, depots and more on display at the museum. Equipment used through the years is also on view and there's a model train display.

The museum is housed in the former depot of the now-defunct Tavares & Gulf Railroad, which operated along a 32-mile track with a 6-mile branch. Established in the 1880s, the railroad was sold in the 1920s and made its last run in 1969.

I'm most interested in its early years during the pioneer era. Museum literature and displays say the railroad, in those days, was better known locally as Tug & Grunt instead of Tavares & Gulf. That's because it kept derailing. In 1905, it held a national record for jumping the track nine times in a single round trip. I can only imagine the effort required to push a rail car back into line. 

Yes, early train travel was definitely an adventure. Certainly nothing like the relaxing comfort of today's rides. For that, I'm glad. I love learning about the past but the older I get, the happier I am to have modern comforts.

Museum photo, above, shows a derailed train,
something that happened frequently on this
particular rail line. Below is an example
of the dishware displays at the museum.
(Gerri Bauer photos)

All those miles of canals

Cape Coral began as a dream.
(Screengrab credit WGCU Public Media)

You have to wonder, what if? What if Cape Coral's developers hadn't done so much dredging almost 70 years ago? Hadn't created so many canals so everyone in the planned community could have a waterfront home? Hadn't inadvertently made conditions perfect for Hurricane Ian.

The 2022 storm's 140 mph winds and surging waters slammed Cape Coral. Canals overflowed, boats and buildings and businesses were destroyed.

The questions popped into mind when I watched a 2006 video about Cape Coral's creation. As with other Florida planned communities, the city in southwest Florida started as a dream. Brothers Jack and Leonard Rosen bought about 115 square miles on a peninsula along the Caloosahatchee River in the 1950s. They formed a development corporation and got busy.

The company clear-cut pine woods, drained swamps, dredged, cut hundreds of miles of canals, destroyed wildlife habitat and harmed the aquifer. 

We cringe, today, to think such actions were allowed there and elsewhere in Florida in the 1950s and 1960s. But during Florida's most recent boom I've seen some new development areas leveled just in my area alone. A popular justification is that clear-cutting is needed because of old, unsafe trees and undesirable vegetation. Right.

Cape Coral was almost an unpopulated wilderness in the 1950s. Families homesteaded there as late as the 1920s. Real homesteading, per rules set out by the national Homestead Act of the 1860s. These families raised cattle and farmed.

That changed when the Cape Coral developers' global sales force fanned across the country and world, selling the Florida dream. The city was promoted as a Waterfront Wonderland. Indeed, it has 400 miles of canals - said to be more than Venice, Italy.

Cape Coral's first four houses were built in 1958. Growth surged in the 1960s. Prospective buyers were flown in. They were wined, dined, treated to vacation-like overnight stays, and subjected to high-pressure sales sessions.

Five families lived in the Cape Coral region in 1950. Mail arrived by boat. The population was 280 by 1960. It had jumped to 11,000 by 1970.

By the time Hurricane Ian landed, the city itself had almost 200,000 residents. The combined population of Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area was 787,000. That region of southwest Florida had been one of the fastest growing in the state.

In the 2006 video, city leaders talked about their dreams and plans for the future. I can only wonder what they wish for now. I wish them the best.

Cross Florida in only 12 hours

A cross-Florida car journey was such a
major undertaking in 1909 that it attracted
newspaper attention. Photo credit:
Chronicling America

Summer is the season of car travel for so many of us. It's easy and convenient, even if gas prices are ridiculous. Hopping in a car is such a way of life we don't even think about it.

That wasn't the case in 1909.  A century ago, cruising along Florida's roads was an adventure. Vehicle trips weren't for the faint-hearted. A journey that today takes a few hours required an entire day in 1909. One such journey was so amazing it garnered front-page newspaper attention.

On March 23, 1909, the Daytona Beach News featured this headline: From Coast to Coast in a Day. That's one Florida coast to the other, not the Atlantic to the Pacific. The cross-state trip was considered a stunt. The Hotchkiss party broke a record when they made the trip in 12 hours in their Pope-Hartford Touring Car. 

George Hotchkiss, his daughter and a Miss Rollins, all chauffeured by driver Auguste Grosjean "reported a most successful and interesting trip." They journeyed from Tampa to Daytona Beach and at times achieved a speed of almost 16 miles per hour. The fact that there wasn't engine or tire trouble was worthy of mention.

They weren't driving on pavements we're familiar with. The group considered some of the roads they traversed - primarily in the larger towns - "most excellent." Others were less so. The group crossed through stretches of heavy sand and flatwoods and had to ford several streams. Once, the water reached the bed of the car. They also had to board a ferry at one point.

Cars and everything about them were much in the news that day. Daytona Beach was gearing up for the "sixth renewal" of the Daytona Beach Races. "Dare-devil drivers ready for the coming fray," the newspaper reported. That remains true today. Daytona Beach is still a mecca for car races.

Today, a cross-state car trip is a regular thing. Nobody has to drive through flatwoods or sand or ford streams to get from Tampa to Daytona. They do have to deal with traffic congestion and the nightmare otherwise known as Interstate 4. A trip that should require about 3 hours can stretch to 5 or 6. It only feels like it's taking 12 hours.

1909 Pope Hartford Touring Car appears
luxurious for its time.
Photo credit: Flickr - Jack Snell

First car in Florida?

First car in Florida? Could be. (Credit:
Jacksonville Motorcar History website)

The hero of my upcoming Christmas novella is a man of his time and place, 1898 Florida. When he sees a magazine advertisement for a Winton automobile, he's so enthusiastic that he immediately wants to buy one of the new, innovative vehicles.

Such a purchase didn't fit into my storyline. But the idea made me wonder when Floridians saw their first gasoline automobile in action along local streets. Turns out that was in 1900 in Jacksonville, according to my internet research.

I'm not a car enthusiast or credentialed historian. If you know of cars in Florida earlier or elsewhere, please leave a comment. The car in Jacksonville was the first factory-made car to show up in town, so that qualifier may be important in a list of firsts.

Some websites quote relevant Jacksonville Times-Union newspaper articles, including one from Jan. 5, 1900. I can't locate that primary source, so this blog post relies on secondary online resources. I'll link to them at the end of this post. My thanks to all the chroniclers for the information below:

A crowd gathered on Jan. 4, 1900 to see undertaker Charles A. Cook drive "the first car in Florida" into the Jacksonville city center. Local men reacted much the way my fictional hero does. Many declared intentions to buy the same model car right away. That meant as soon as the factory could make them. Mass-production auto assembly lines didn't yet exist.

The vehicle that astonished everyone was a Locomobile Stanley No. 2. Mr. Cook happily granted onlookers rides in his fancy new contraption.

A few months later, a tourist drove another Locomobile on the beach in Jacksonville. It was a speed test, not an ordinary drive around town. Driver C.W. Seamans covered three miles in six minutes. An astonished newspaper reporter wrote, "This is about as rare a thing as a shooting star in Purgatory."

Within three years, in 1903, there were about 40 cars in Jacksonville. The city had a population somewhere between 28,000 (1900) and 57,800 (1910) at the time. 

At first, no laws regulated use of automobiles on Florida roads. But legislators kept an eye on the rapidly growing popularity of cars statewide. A 1905 bill required car owners to register their vehicles with the state. Cost: $2 per car. That's about $69 today. 

At first, owners had to make their own license plates out of wood, tin or leather, according to a history of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. A unified, annually renewable Florida license plate made of steel was created in 1917.

It's hard to imagine cars being such new inventions that people gathered just to see one in real life. Autos changed the Florida landscape over the past century. They're still doing so today. I can't wait for auto-driving cars to be perfected. I'll be one of the people waiting in line to get one.

Parish women lead the way

The 'new' Blessed Trinity Church opened in
1922. It replaced a smaller, wooden church. 

Parish-affiliated Catholic women's groups have existed for a long time. Each supports parish needs. Each also contributes to the wider community through charitable work and donations. 

We hear a lot today about the decline in volunteerism. It's always been somewhat of a struggle, though. Listen to this memoir about a 1937 meeting that occurred after morning Mass at Blessed Trinity Church in Ocala. The pastor asked for a woman to step up and lead a new altar society. 

As Father Nixon went from lady to lady, they would decline saying they were too busy, or not well enough, or had small children. ...

Father Nixon was stymied. He had to leave Ocala to say Mass in mission territory and was in danger of being late. He was also still fasting, per the era's church rules about not eating past midnight the day before Mass. And September in Florida is hot, humid and summery. Air conditioning as we know it today didn't exist in the average home and business in 1937. 

The priest finally turned toward 19-year-old Audrey Mortimer (later Audrey Mortimer Chambers) and appointed her president for a year. No one objected. Except Audrey, the writer of the memoir. She felt out of her league among the older women there. She'd only attended the meeting in place of her mother, who was ill. But Father Nixon was gone. He had just enough time to gulp some food at the rectory before racing to the mission church.

Audrey embraced her duties and gathered 22 women her own age to form the altar society. One of their duties was to cover the parish's candle bill. Money was tight during the Depression, so the young women staged rummage sales and card parties on weekends when they weren't working.

Today, parish maintenance is usually handled by professionals. Back then, members of altar societies literally cleaned the altars in church. They also polished brass, wiped down  woodwork and cleaned wax bits from vigil lights. 

One of the most difficult jobs, says Audrey in her memoir, was caring for the priestly vestments and the altar linens. She writes:

We did not have steam irons or air conditioning or even fans in those days, so you had to keep a towel handy to keep from sweating on the fresh linens.

The members had to create their own steam by ironing the heavy Irish linen altar cloths while  still wet. Vestments with lace had to be ironed on a bath towel, also while still wet. (I just gave thanks for my modern appliances.)

Many early 20th century altar societies became part of the larger Council of Catholic Women organization, which formed on the national level in 1920. The Ocala group did exactly that, encouraged by Father Nixon. The altar society affiliated with the local diocesan CCW. 

The connection brought the Ocala women into the orbit of CCWs throughout the diocese, station, region and nation. During a 1940 regional meeting, members heard a letter sent by then-Pope Pius XII in which he blessed their work. 

The meeting's theme still resonates today. The world was troubled in 1940. In light of that, CCW members were urged to offer the best of religion and the best of citizenship. They were reminded to stay confident in God, to live their faith, do charitable work, support the parish's needs and "be prepared to meet the more serious times that were ahead."  

That could have been written in 2023. My parish's CCW group this season raised and donated over $6,000 to local community initiatives. We gave to educational, medical, mission and family housing organizations. And yes, to specific parish needs. No, we're not chipping wax chips from the vigil lights. But we are bracing for serious times ahead.

---

Historical information in this post is from the book, "Catholics of Marion County," by Jane Quinn, published in 1978 by Mission Press, Ocala.

Prices: High in any era

These 1923 prices seem low from the
distance of a century. But the 
modern equivalent is $50 to $140.
  

Inflation shocks me every time I go to a store, particularly the supermarket. Prices seem to increase every week. On top of that, I'm an elder now and prices in general regularly surprise me. I tend to compare them to costs as they existed in my youth. 

People in the past probably felt the same about rising prices no matter when they lived. Particularly as they aged or lived through high-inflation periods. I thought it'd be interesting to do a cursory review of how much things cost a hundred years ago, in 1923. If only to be astonished at the differences.

My point of comparison is the once-famous Dreka Department Store in the Central Florida city of DeLand. It was founded in 1878 and operated for decades. The mercantile was so successful the owner, George A. Dreka, expanded in the early 1900s. He built the first reinforced concrete structure in the county in 1909. The showcase multistory building cost $75,000. Depending on which website you look at, that equates to between $1.9 and $2.5 million in modern dollars. The building is still around and is a downtown landmark.

Dreka's prided itself on selling everything a person could "eat, wear, and use." The store was a regular advertiser in the DeLand Sun News, which was the DeLand Daily News in 1923. Here's what some of the advertised items sold for in 1923:

• Ipswich Hosiery - for ladies, in wool and silk and in a range of brown and tan colors, plus white, $1 a pair. That's a hefty $17 today.
• Men's Felt Hats - these came in a range of prices, from $3.50 to $10. A sale in late December dropped those prices to $2.79 to $7.98. Translated to modern times, that's about $50 to $140. Not such a great bargain.
• Dresses, Capes and Coats - a special sale was being held, with $32.50 to $40 dresses available for $27.50, and $15 to $18 capes and coats for $11.75. They may have been on sale but they sure weren't cheap. Inflation calculators peg those 1923 prices as over $200 each today. 
• Dollar Day - "Exceptional values in every department" were to be had Nov. 8, 1923, during a special Dollar Day. Some were special deals. For example, if you bought a 78x88 Marseilles Bedspread for $3.50 you could get a second one for only $1. But there was an array of goods available for just $1. They included: 5 yards of dress gingham; 10 yards of muslin; 6 yards of flannel; a corset; middy blouse; children's romper; 3 lb. box of peanut brittle; 24 Hershey's chocolate bars; 2 pairs of earrings; men's overalls; ladies' knit vest; and on and on.

Some of the Dollar Day deals did appear to be bargains. Using today's $17 equivalent of 1923's single dollar, you'd get 5 yards of dress gingham for $17. That's slightly less than what you'd pay today. Ditto for the flannel yardage. And where in the world would you be able to buy 24 Hershey's chocolate bars for $17?

 

One of my favorite Dreka advertisements didn't include pricing at all. It was a small ad advertising a Butterick Pattern for The New Long Blouse. "Paris decrees it, Butterick features it," states the ad. It encourages home sewists to shop the Dreka piece goods counters to select fabric and suggests appropriate choices: crepe de Chine, novelty silk, chiffon velvet, crepe satin and silk crepe. Customers were also urged to stop by the store's Butterick Pattern counter to buy the blouse pattern. It's interesting that the ad points out how the pattern includes sewing instructions. That's a given today. 

I wish I could temporarily step back to 1923 so I could stroll into Dreka's and buy that or some other pattern. Mainly to find out how much they cost. Inflation has affected modern sewing patterns greatly. Some cost more than ready-made fast-fashion clothes. 

I don't have to leave 2023 to buy Butterick patterns, though. They're still around and known as one of the Big 4 pattern companies. As for those prices: I wait for the sales. Which I'm sure shoppers also did 100 years ago. I won't snag a pattern for a single dollar except at a yard or estate sale. But a sale is a sale, no matter what year it is.

Centuries aside, people are people

A modern photo from a movie set?
 Hardly. It's from the 1920s.

The past few weeks have been hectic. I'm in need of a battery recharge. So excuse my excuse of a post here.

Take a close look at the photo that's with this blog post. At first glance, it seems to be from a modern costume drama or the set of a period movie or TV show. It appears to have been taken recently. 

But no. It's actually a screengrab from a short video that's about 100 years old. The women in the picture were relaxing on the beach during a sunny day in Palm Beach in the 1920s. 

Then, as now, Palm Beach was the playground of the 1 percenters. The two visitors pictured here had plenty of leisure time and enough money to carefully craft fashion-casual attire. Resort wear, it used to be called.

The original black-and-white video has been restored to a remarkable level. Most significant, to me, is how the bright color and sharp quality of the restored film erases time. You could imagine having seen these people yesterday, at the beach or on the street or at the grocery store. The intervening years disappear. 

One hundred years, one thousand years, people are people. Filled with dreams, dealing with life, snatching fun, doing the day-to-day, just as we all do today. 

External cultural and social trappings evolve and change with time. But the essence that makes us human connects people from one epoch to another. When a restored video brings that idea closer to home, it's a win for all mankind.

Here's the video link in case the one attached to the photo doesn't work: https://youtu.be/jCWJYZM9yeU

Past, future merge in AI audiobook

Listen to the AI narrator Mary
in the free sample.

I write about the past in this blog and in my fiction. But I just took a dive into the AI future. My novella, Trust in Love, a story that takes place in 1891-1892, is now available as an audiobook narrated by artificial intelligence.

It seems weird to even write that.

"Mary," the narrator of the book on Google Play, has a pleasant voice. Her diction is good. Better than I expected. She falls short at times on inflection and emotion. And I had to insert a few transitions into the text because Mary couldn't handle a scene break. 

Those are minor points. I'm happy the book is available in audio. It bugged me that my third novel, Growing A Family in Persimmon Hollow, and my novella lacked that option. Especially because the publisher of my first two novels released audio CD versions. I'm the indie publisher of the third novel and novella, and my budget didn't include money for audio. 

Transforming a written work into audio using traditional techniques is very expensive. Narration and production costs are high. AI audiobooks are still new and Google is letting authors try it out. Apple is launching AI audiobooks, too.

I've submitted my novel and novella into the Apple queue. If accepted, Apple will handle production. Google puts the business into the author's hands. It quickly created my AI file and gave it to me for review. I listened to every word of the novella before publishing the audio version. Google then reviewed the finished product.

I'm well aware that AI narration will get better and better and become stiff competition for voice artists. Just as I'm aware that AI writing will get better and better and become stiff competition for authors. 

Will AI get good enough to mimic the emotions a good storyteller needs? Time will tell. For now, I'll take a backward look at what was trending in literature in 1891 and 1892, when AI was the stuff of science fiction. These factoids are courtesy of Wikipedia:

• Strand Magazine is first published in 1891.
• Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Herman Melville, Jules Verne and Oscar Wilde all release new fiction in 1891. Many others do, too, but these are the authors whose names I recognize.
• Zora Neale Hurston and Henry Miller are born in 1891.
• The first collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories from Strand Magazine is published in 1892.
• W.B. Yeats is one of the founders of the Irish Literary Society in 1892.
• Pearl S. Buck, J.R.R. Tolkien and Edna St. Vincent Millay are born in 1892.
• Walt Whitman dies in 1892.

It'd be too dramatic of me to say fiction writing and narration are on their deathbeds. But I suspect living arrangements might be up for negotiation in the not-too-distant future.