Love blooms on Florida frontier

Read the first chapter of Trust in Love free
at Fiction Finder, a website that helps readers
find Christian fiction. (Gerri Bauer photo)

Update: Jan. 6, 2019: Read the first chapter  free at Fiction Finder!

Original Dec. 20, 2018 post:

Today, I depart from my usual focus on reality. Instead, I concentrate on my new novella about fictional life in pioneer Florida.

This is harder for me than you might think. Catholics are raised to steer clear of calling attention to themselves. Yet anyone who writes today knows the reality of the publishing business. Today's authors must self-promote. So here I am.

Trust in Love is novella length, 33,750 words. It's part of the Persimmon Hollow Legacy series but each book in the series can be read alone, in any order. They are individual stories. All are historical romances that take place in a community of faith and values.

Here's the back-cover blurb for Trust in Love, which is available for $2.99 in ebook and $5.99 in paperback:

Irish immigrant Margaret Murphy has many talents, but waitressing isn’t one of them. A hotel waitress job in pioneer Florida is her last chance to help her family stave off starvation. But she’s in danger of being fired. Will the love that blooms with a fellow worker, an immigrant from Italy, be a saving grace or a complicated distraction?

As with my blog about everyday life, the novella centers on daily living. My main characters are immigrants who work in one of the hotels that, in reality, were popular in late 19th century Florida. My hotel is fictional, but the long hours of work were real in that time and place. Tourists were wealthy and demanded and received excellence.

I've written previous blog posts about early Florida hotels, and they touch on some of the social dynamics:

• Eleven-course meals
• First Magic Kingdom?
• Fresh fruit displays

Now I feel better for having introduced some real-life aspects of the subject. And will end on that happy note, except for providing links, below, for purchase. :)

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Trust in Love is available from the following vendors and also in some library digital collections.

Amazon (ebook and paperback)
Barnes & Noble (ebook)
Kobo (ebook)

Apple Books (ebook)

A game of el riquito, anyone?

Immigrant youth in Ybor City added an
ethnic flavor to games and pastimes in the
late 1800s and early 1900s. Photo
credit: State Archives of Florida

Back in 2002-2003, the Ybor City Museum Society hosted an exhibit about childhood pastimes during Ybor City's early years. I didn't see "Growing Up Ybor," but do have a copy of the 10-page booklet that accompanied the four-month exhibit.

What exactly did youngsters do in their spare time in the Tampa neighborhood at the turn of the last century? Because some of them had no spare time. 

The exhibit booklet's section on "Childhood's End" quickly drew me, in part because it references Italians. I'm always on the lookout for domestic history about people who share my heritage.

I learned the U.S. Census in 1900 reported that almost a third - more than 30% - of Italian cigar workers in Ybor City were ages 5 to 19. So much for playtime. They and other immigrant youth also had to help out at home and in family businesses, and attend school.

All wasn't dour, though. Although I think of Ybor City in that era as populated primarily by Cubans and Italians, it also housed immigrants from Spain, Germany, Romania and elsewhere. Children of each ethnicity introduced traditional games and pastimes, such as a Mediterranean singing game or re-enactments of Spanish or Italian folk tales.

The children also adopted American games and pastimes - even though they often used their native languages to describe them. The booklet states that "... stick-ball was el riquiti, jump rope was bailando la Suiza and jacks became las Yaquis."

Often, toys were handmade. They included dolls, dollhouses, button yo-yos, and scooters made of a skate and scrap wood. Store-bought items might include pick-up sticks, paper dolls, toy trucks and soldiers, and marbles. Pretty much what you'd expect in an early American childhood anywhere in the United States at that time.

When movies arrived, neighborhood youth flocked to local theaters on Saturdays in Ybor City just as they did elsewhere. Truly, we're all much more alike than different, in so many ways, across so many years.