Today's post is a big departure for me. That's because I didn't write it. Instead, I share, with permission, a post titled "Sorrow of the Scrub," by Rollins College Professor Lesley Kemp Poole.
The post reflects on the harsh reality of childhood mortality in frontier Florida. One statistic cited says up to 50 percent of children died before age 5 in Florida in the late 1800s. Some women buried almost all their children.
The reasons for the deaths are many, but the grief such losses evoked spans time and place. The post discusses how burying so many children affected both real and fictional mothers in the Florida scrub. What makes the article so compelling are memories shared by descendants - including the author - of some of those pioneers.
Childhood death is a stark reminder of the harsher side to the pioneer experience, darker than what I usually write about. But important to know.
The post first appeared on The Marjorie (https://themarjorie.org), a reporting outlet focused on Florida's deep human history and unique environment. The site's name channels the legacies of three important Marjories in Florida history: author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, conservationist Marjorie Harris Carr and advocate and author Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Enjoy.
