Little House on the Florida frontier, revisited

This 30-page booklet sheds light on the
Wilder family's brief stay in frontier Florida

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about how Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on the Florida frontier for about a year in the early 1890s. 

I'd been surprised to learn that she, Almanzo, and their daughter, Rose, had settled briefly in the backwoods of rural Florida. And unsurprised to learn they'd left rather quickly.

Yankees and Old South residents didn't mix well in that time and place. The Wilders' short residency in Westville, FL, wasn't a happy one.

I wanted to learn more than I could glean from the Internet. Thanks to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association, I have. 

The association has long overseen production and distribution of a 30-page booklet about the Westville years. First published in 1979, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Westville Florida Years is in its 7th printing. I purchased it via the association's online store (along with a couple of quilt patterns Laura was known to have followed).

An even bigger thanks goes to author Alene M. Warnock and her husband, James M. Warnock. Her curiosity and perserverence uncovered gems of information about descendents and the Ingalls-Wilder legacy in Florida. His photographs provide additional context and his essay about Westville "today"  - meaning the late 1970s - depicts a time as distant to us in 2020 as the 1890s are. 

Westville in the 1970s was smaller than it had been in the 1890s. I've never been to the community, but I expect it's smaller now than even in the 1970s. It hugs the Florida-Alabama border in the middle of nowhere. I did visit the region, though, a number of years ago. The countryside is beautiful.

I don't know if either of the Warnocks is still alive. If they are, I hope they know of my and many Wilder fans' appreciation of their efforts. But I suspect they have passed. I found a legacy.com obituary for an Alene M. Warnock who died in 2011 and whose husband, James, had predeceased her. 

I won't provide a lot of details about what's in their booklet. It only costs $3.50 and your purchase would help support a nonprofit. In fact, the little book would make a great stocking stuffer for your favorite Wilder fan or for yourself! 

Why should you read it? Because you'll find - among other treats -  that the Warnocks met and interviewed Laura's - niece? cousin once-removed? The woman, named Emma, was elderly in the 1970s and an important link to the past and to Laura's life story.

I'm not exactly sure how to term the relationship between Laura and "Miss Emma." The woman was the daughter of Laura's cousin Peter Ingalls, the person on whose homestead the Wilders probably settled for their year in Florida. The Warnocks found no evidence that Laura and Almanzo filed a homestead claim of their own. That the Warnocks found such a close relative of Laura's in the 1970s is a wonderful thing. 

The Warnocks did a lot of diligent searching and interviewing and traveling on their own time and dime. They shed needed light on the Wilder family's Westville detour. For that, this Wilder fan salutes them. As I hope many other Wilder fans have done and will do.

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Here's a link to the 2017 post I wrote about the family's sojourn in Florida. 

What's appeal of historic rural homesteads?

Screengrab of log cabin at Cracker Country.
in Tampa. Photo credit: City of Tampa video

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so interested in rural pioneer life. My posts often veer toward country-living topics rather than city doings. Yet both deserve equal attention.

I grew up in New York City when it was the most populous city in the country. My grandparents had a rustic summer bungalow about a two-hour (in those days) drive from the loud, crowded neighborhoods I and my extended family called home. And I mean rustic. The bungalow had no running water, no electricity, and no bathroom. It was small, with exposed ceiling beams.

I thought it the height of fun to run across the narrow lane and get water from an old-fashioned iron pump. At night, I'd fall asleep in a room crowded with siblings and cousins, listening to the adults talking and playing cards on the porch in the glow of kerosene lamplight.

Very nostalgic. But very not me, at least the adult me. I lead a simple life in a midsize town with all the modern conveniences needed and wanted. In younger adulthood, I loved to tent camp in Florida forests and parks with family and friends. But I couldn't live in pioneer conditions unless my survival depended on it. Not then, not now. Kill and pluck a chicken? Um, no.

Yet my interest in that era and way of life persists. I'm not alone, either. I continually find evidence of re-created rural homesteads the more I research Florida pioneer history. They appear to be popular with visitors young and old. The older ones remember the good parts of the past, the way I've enshrined memories of  my bungalow vacations. The younger ones learn of a time before smart phones and the Internet.

As an aside, I think these museums need to step up programming to include more about the lives of marginalized peoples of earlier times. Many places are starting to incorporate such history, but more details need to emerge.

My time in the old country bungalow was brief - weekends and short summer stays - but full of relatives and laughter. Most of all, full of love. And maybe that's what I and everyone else really grasp from these portraits of the past. The human connection is what matters most.

ON A RELATED NOTE:

Below is a video link about one of Florida's tourist-oriented rural homesteads to visit: Cracker Country on the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa.

I haven't been there yet, but will visit when possible. Am especially intrigued by the Carlton family connection.  I used to work at Stetson University, which was Doyle Carlton Sr.'s alma mater and to which he donated generously as an alumnus. The student union, popularly called the CUB, is actually named Carlton Student Union.

Thank you, readers, for letting me ramble in this post. I'll get back to basics next month!

Here's the video about Cracker Country in Tampa: