Lenten rules of 1900: eye-opening

Florida newspapers including
the Tampa Tribune let readers
know about Lent rules in 1900.

Are your Lenten obligations becoming difficult to observe? Be glad you're not living in 1900. 

The March 28, 1900, edition of the Pensacola News reminded Catholics about their Lenten obligations. The article headlined Rules for Lent was eye-opening to my 21st century self:

• Near-daily fasts: Catholics ages 21 to 59 were obligated to fast on all days of Lent except Sundays. That meant only one full meal per day was permitted and only after noon. Exceptions were allowed for sickness, hard work or "other well known reasons."  Basically, during Lent a person fasted - meaning restricting the amount of food - for a total of almost 40 days. Today, those fasts are required only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, although Catholics are urged to follow them on all Fridays. Rules of abstinence apply on those days, too.

• Fasting facts: Morning sustenance consisted of a cup of coffee, tea or chocolate and one thin cracker or piece of bread. The midday meal would be the full one. The evening collation was about a quarter of the food eaten at a full meal. Butter, cheese, milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables and fish were allowed. Notice that no meat or fowl is on that list. A timing exception was allowed when taking the full meal at noon was a "grave inconvenience."

• Meatless meals: No meat was allowed on all Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, plus Holy Saturday and the Saturday of Ember Week. I'm a practicing Catholic but I had to look up Ember Week. It was at the start of Lent. Saturday of Ember Week meant the Saturday after Ash Wednesday. So, in addition to fasting, these days required abstaining from certain foods.

• No mixing: Catholics couldn't serve meat and fish at the same meal, even on Sundays.

• No dairy: Abstinence from eggs, cheese, milk and butter was recommended for Good Friday. 

• Exemptions: People working in strenuous jobs were exempt from fasting but still had to follow abstinence and other restrictions on certain days of the liturgical year. Those allowed to eat meat could have it only at one meal on days of abstinence. And even these working people had to follow the fasting rules on Ash Wednesday, Fridays and Holy Week. Interestingly, the exemptions for working people had only been in effect for five years at that time. The bishops had relaxed the rules in 1895. A March 3, 1900, issue of the Tampa Tribune also noted that those suffering illness, plus growing youth, pregnant and nursing women and the aged were also exempt. 

A few things haven't changed quite as much over the past 125 years. The holy season of Lent today -- as back then -- is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. But in 1900, it was also a time of seclusion from the world and its amusements. Another issue of the Tampa paper in March 1900 cited club meetings, church gatherings and Red Cross work as acceptable social engagements during Lent. Non-observers would continue filling their social calendars with things like lunch at the yacht club and dances as the Tampa Bay Hotel.

Without going into specifics - and aside from a dedicated prayer life - my modern-day Lenten fasting and almsgiving hardly measure up to those of yesteryear. I'm also reminded of the stricter fasting rules Muslims observe during Ramadan, although they, too, are allowed exemptions under certain conditions.

Lent is a time of reflection and spiritual realignment. Perhaps those old newspaper articles are meant for more than research. I'm no rad-trad Catholic. I'm a believer in the spirit of Vatican II. But there's much to ponder in past practices, including those reaching back 2,000 years to the time of Jesus. Lent is a good time for that contemplation.

Mother Hunt: Big love

The City of Daytona Beach
featured this photo of 
Sarah Hunt on their website page
about 2025 Black History Icons:
https://www.daytonabeach.gov/1441/2025-Black-History-Icons

Where to begin with the story of Sarah Hunt, aka Mother Hunt. The City of Daytona Beach and the Daytona Beach News-Journal honored this remarkable woman in February 2025 as a Black History Icon. She deserves the recognition.

A couple of big names tend to garner major Black history attention in Daytona Beach, with understandable reason. Mary McLeod Bethune and Howard Thurman are legendary giants, famous far beyond their Daytona Beach legacies. 

But for every Bethune and Thurman in the world, there are a thousand Sarah Hunts. In Daytona, she saw orphans and elderly in dire need and she did something about it. She took in children -- sometimes left on her doorstep -- and guided frail elderly to safety and security by providing a home for them all.

She officially founded an orphanage in 1924 on what is now George Engram Boulevard. The home is believed to have been the first black orphanage in Florida. 

The facility was first known as the Old Folks and Children's Home. It was later renamed the Florida East Coast Orphan and Child Caring Home. Sarah Hunt also founded a church across the street from the orphanage, the Mount Mission Missionary Baptist Church.

She received little to zero help from whatever state agencies existed in the 1920s and 1930s. Closely tied to her story are memories of her walking around the neighborhood with a basket on her arm, seeking donations to help keep alive those in need. She used her own funds and community donations to maintain the orphanage.

Little is known about the personal life of Sarah Hunt, yet the few details we have convey a sense of dignity, determination, strength and Christian love. 

She was born in either the 1857 or 1865 or 1867 and came to Daytona Beach from Georgia in 1905. Why she moved here is unknown. She died in 1936 from pneumonia and is buried in Mount Ararat Cemetery in Daytona Beach. 

One of her final acts - hours before her death - was to contact a local representative of the Florida state welfare system. She relayed her worries about the 25 children and six elderly people she looked after at that time. "She told the welfare worker the orphanage was totally without funds, that even the supply of food was limited." 

That information is from a Dec. 19, 1936 Daytona Beach Morning Journal newspaper article about Sarah Hunt's death. The same article noted she had been well known both locally and to state welfare agencies as Mother Hunt. 

The article explains that the Florida welfare department couldn't help because the orphanage wasn't licensed by the state. But Mother Hunt's plea traveled up departmental lines. The statewide director issued a statement encouraging private and church-led agencies to aid the orphanage. 

On the surface, it sounds like red tape prevented the state from taking over the orphanage. Still. I'm a little suspicious. Surely they could have done something. There obviously was a relationship and an open line of communication. But this was the Jim Crow South. Just the fact that the state director issued a supportive statement was probably outside the norm.

The 1936 article says nothing about Sarah's life before she reached Daytona. We learn a little more from her death certificate, which someone uploaded to the Find A Grave website. The certificate says she was about 79 years old when she died in 1936. That would put her birth in the 1850s. Her exact date of birth is listed as unknown.

Sarah was born in Rabun County in northern Georgia, a state where slavery still existed in the 1850s. Was she born to enslaved parents? Free parents? A forced encounter? Her father's name and birthplace are listed as unknown. Her mother's birthplace is also listed as unknown, but her name is given. The first name is illegible but the last appears to be Hunt.

Interestingly, the death certificate also lists Sarah as the widow of a Robert Hunt or Robert Hugh. She's shown as homekeeper of the "colored orphanage," and as having worked at that occupation for 50 years. 

That's far longer than she oversaw the formally established orphanage. That leads me to think she cared for others informally for decades before opening the dedicated home in 1924. It was her life's work. What led her to it? We may never know. But there is a clue in the 1910 U.S. Census.

The 1910 Census lists Sarah Hunt, age 45 (birthdate 1865), as a widowed dressmaker living on Daytona's Midway Street in a home she owned. If this is the same Sarah Hunt, she must have arrived from Georgia with some or all the money needed to buy a home. No local dressmaker could earn enough in five years (1905 arrival to 1910 census) to cover a down payment, mortgage and taxes. That she owned her home is significant. It was no easy feat for a widowed Black woman at that time and place. 

That Census also shows Sarah as living with one adopted adult child. Then there is the shocker: Sarah is listed as having four children -- none of whom were still alive. What happened to them? How did they die? My gosh, to lose all four children? It's unthinkable. One of my grandmothers lost four of her eight children and it scarred her for life. And she still had four who lived.

Sarah shows up in the 1914 Daytona Beach City Directory as a widowed nurse living on 2nd Avenue in a house she owned. And in the 1920 U.S. Census as a 53-year-old (born 1867) rooming-house proprietor in a 2nd Avenue house she owned. I love that she attained and maintained home ownership in such a challenging time.

Census records and directories don't provide a full picture. They leave questions. Far more telling is the way the orphanage was renamed Mother Hunt's Orphanage soon after her death. It speaks to how much she was loved, respected and admired.

The orphanage remained in operation. A March 7, 1961 article in the Daytona Beach Morning Journal notes that it was "the only licensed orphanage for Negro children in Florida." 

Mother Hunt's Orphanage eventually became the Sarah Hunt Methodist Children's Home. It merged with the Florida Methodist Children's Home in 1971. The two became the Florida United Methodist Children's Home, a longtime fixture on acreage near Lake Monroe in Enterprise. The Daytona Beach property later became part of Bethune-Cookman University. 

In 2011, a new structure at the Children's Home was named the Sarah Hunt Home. It's so fitting that her name lives on. A March 30, 2011 Daytona Beach News-Journal article covered the building's dedication. In the article, a Rev. Walter Monroe is quoted as saying Mother Hunt "tried to provide a haven and refuge for that [each] person to become whole again."

And perhaps, in doing so, Sarah Hunt also became whole, herself. 

Writers went solo on frontier

Learn more about the conference at this link:
https://www.catholicwritersguild.org/online-conference

I'm preparing to give a presentation at the Catholic Writers Guild Online Conference, Jan. 31-Feb. 2 (2025). During my research, I wondered whether writers gathered for professional meetings or conferences in Florida's pioneer days. Artists were known to flock together here. The art colony at Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine was famous during the Gilded Age.

All such gatherings in that age were in person, not virtual like the upcoming CWGO. If you're reading this before Jan. 31, 2025, there's still time to register for CWGO. It's a great conference and reasonably priced: $45 for Guild members; $65 for nonmembers. Presentations are Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and 2, and pitch sessions to publishers are Feb. 10-13. Learn more at https://www.catholicwritersguild.org/online-conference.

Back to the Gilded Age in Florida. I dove into one of my favorite research portals: old newspapers. And found few mentions of writers gathering for a conferences or meetings. I browsed newspapers from the 1890s to 1930. 

The lack of information was frustrating because Florida is famous for being a writer's haven. There's an entire book about it: The Book Lover's Guide to Florida. I have it; it's a fabulous look at authors who lived or wrote here, and the sites associated with them. Here's a link on Google Books. 

So, what did I discover about writing and Florida in the late 1800s and early 1900s? Well, St. Augustine did have a bookstore. The city's Tatler newspaper carried a notice in its Jan. 26, 1895, edition:

"A favorite haunt of book lovers is El Unico, the shop under the great arch of Hotel Cordova. ...All of the leading books are received as soon as issued, and every day one finds new volumes on the tables."

The scant mention of literary meetings concerned newspaper writers or out-of-state news. One example was a notice about British writer Rudyard Kipling resigning from the Society of Authors after being a member for 25 years. He disliked how the organization supported "charity books published in aid of the war." The war was World War I, as the notice appeared in the Daytona Daily News on April 14, 1917.

Members of the Alabama Press Association toured St. Augustine in January 1895 on a trip that included several other stops in Florida and in Cuba. The Tatler's coverage focused on places the members visited in the Oldest City and mentioned nothing about a conference or presentations. 

The only thing the gathering stirred up was gossip. A subsequent news item chided the city's Board of Trade for its conspicuous absence during the group's public welcome to the city. The power of print media was stronger back then. It was a time before the internet and even before TV and radio. Happily, the press association members said they had a great time in St. Augustine.

Writers were the ones who got the word out about Florida. Travel writers, authors, poets, novelists, essayists -- writers of all kinds and all levels of prestige - explored the state. The influx began in the mid-1800s and has never let up. But apparently in the early days, writers here didn't assemble for professional gatherings. They traveled here alone or with family or friends. It's almost hard for me to think about a time when writers conferences didn't exist. 

Writers gathered with other creative artists, 
as this 1912 issue of the Pensacola Journal
 tells readers.

Frontier writer interactions took place mainly on the personal or small-group level. Professional gatherings were worthy of newspaper mention. The Pensacola Journal in January 1912 let readers know that authors, poets, sculptors and musicians were assembled in Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. But Philly is a long way from Florida.

Some aspects of writing transcend both time and distance, however. A reader letter published in the March 1, 1893, edition of the Florida Agriculturist complained about the damage and misinformation "bad" writers can do. He? She? -- no name is given--was irked by a popular garden writer and speaker full of endless advice that many people followed. The letter writer visited the popular writer's plant nursery and found it to be a disappointing failure of wilted and dying flora.

Writers have always needed guidance. More reason to attend the CWCO! There's always something new to learn. Once you look at the list of presentations, I think you'll agree. Scroll to the bottom of this page to find links about presentations, presenters and pitch sessions: https://www.catholicwritersguild.org/online-conference