School site echoes vibrant past

Does this building still stand? This is
 a 2011 image of St. Benedict the Moor
School. (Credit: Google Street View)

Second of two parts

Six years is a long time in our age of instant communications. The turn-of-the-20th-century building at the core of today's post might not exist anymore. I can't find photos of St. Benedict the Moor School newer than a 2011 Google Street View, pictured first in this post. That's an ominous sign, for the school's history is rich. The physical remainder, as you can see, is in dire shape.

Built in 1898, St. Benedict school was "one of the first all-black Catholic schools in Florida," according to a 2014 article in the St. Augustine Record. The St. Benedict parish in St. Augustine's Lincolnville neighborhood was founded in the 1870s, during Reconstruction. St. Benedict's Church was built in the early 1900s. It's been restored and appears vibrant again. 

A few web resources linked in this post document the church and school history. As always, for me, the social history leaps out. Such as the time three Catholic nuns were arrested in 1916 because they were white women teaching black schoolchildren. Jim Crow laws forbade such interaction during segregation years in Florida (and probably in other states).

As a Catholic-owned educational institution, St. Benedict's was a private school. A judge ruled the law didn't apply to private schools, and the nuns were released. Their names deserve mention, though: Sisters Mary Thomasine, Scholastica and Beningus, according to the St. Augustine Record article. That news story also notes the arrests occurred on an Easter Sunday.

St. Benedict's students ride in a school float decorated
for an Emancipation Day parade in the 1920s.
(Credit: State Archives of Florida/Twine)

The information about the nuns is listed in various websites and on a historical marker erected on the grounds of the church complex. Photos of the marker are below.

Lesser known are the photos by African-American Richard Twine, a photographer who's the subject of Part One of this post. He photographed St. Benedict class pictures, church gatherings and even the school's float in an Emancipation  Day parade in the 1920s. The images bring to life the human side of one of the decades when St. Benedict School thrived. The Twine collection may be viewed on the Florida Memory website.

The school closed in the 1960s, some 70 years after it was built with money from philanthropist and Catholic nun St. Katharine Drexel. Restoration efforts started, but stalled. In 2004, the school was considered one of St. Augustine's most threatened historic places. I wonder if restoration remains a goal. I sure hope so.

Credit: These closeup views of the
Black Catholic Heritage historical marker
 are from a gallery on waymarking.com

Gifted photographer a mystery man

Photographer Richard A. Twine self-portrait.
(Credit: State Archives of Florida/Twine)

July 2019 update:
Mystery photographer revealed

---

Original 2017 post:

First of two parts

Funny how threads of interest travel online. Last week, I saw a Facebook post by Florida's Bureau of Library Development. It linked to a page on the State Archives of Florida's Florida Memory website. The trail was worth following. It led to an African-American photographer named Richard Aloysius Twine.

I can't link to a Wikipedia page about Twine, because one doesn't exist. I hope to rectify that by creating a page for him as part of a retirement project. He deserves wider recognition for the visual record he made of the African-American community of Lincolnville in St. Augustine. Between 1922 and 1927 he created more than 100 images of Lincolnville people, places and events.

Twine's images are preserved at the St. Augustine Historical Society and are (2022 update: were) showcased online at Florida Memory. That website provides the only biographical detail I could find about Twine. He was born in 1896 and was a professional photographer, at least during the 1920s. He was in his 20s when he documented community life.

What the brief bio doesn't say, but what I infer from the photos, is that Twine was Catholic or was close to the Catholic community in Lincolnville. A number of his pictures depict St. Benedict the Moor church, churchgoers and schoolchildren. St. Benedict the Moor was the first African-American parish in the St. Augustine diocese, according to a 2014 article in the St. Augustine Record. Part Two of this blog post looks more closely at the church and school.

Ninety-six of Twine's photos can be viewed online. (2022 update: The site no longer exists.) One of my favorites is "The 'Catholic Crowd' After Church." Twine - looking quite dapper - is seated in the middle of the photo, and is surrounded by women wearing their Sunday best. The image preserves a slice of life from a long-ago Sunday.

I looked at every one of the photos. Each draws the viewer in for a closer look. Each leaves the viewer with a better understanding of a place and people at a certain point in time. A sensitive and gifted man was behind the camera. I wonder what happened to him. Did he stop taking photos? If so, why? Did he move away? Embark on a different career? The photos are silent.

'The 'Catholic Crowd' After Church" by Richard A. Twine.
He's seated at center.
(Credit: State Archives of Florida/Twine)

Part 2 of the original 2017 post is about St. Benedict the Moor Catholic School.

Food, culture contrast in 'Cross Creek Cookery'

Cross Creek Cookery was published 75 years ago.

This year (2017) marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Cross Creek and Cross Creek Cookery, both by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. First editions of both books have a place of honor on my bookshelves.

Rawlings moved to Florida in the 1920s and homesteaded in pioneer fashion on a citrus grove in Cross Creek. Even today, the Creek remains a hamlet. It's a strip of land sandwiched between Lochloosa and Orange lakes, an easy drive from Gainesville or Ocala but a century away in ambience.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Cross Creek was remote. Many local customs and behaviors were country holdovers from the turn of the 20th century and earlier. Rawlings captured the essence and lifestyles of the people, and brought them to life in fiction and nonfiction. Readers met many of the locals in Rawlings' popular memoir, Cross Creek.

Although Rawlings lived her version of a Florida Cracker lifestyle at Cross Creek, she was from a privileged background. She moved seamlessly between her rural haven and the urban Northeast. Nowhere is that contrast more evident than in Cross Creek Cookery. 

The cookbook features a mix of local country cuisine and family recipes from Rawlings' cultured upbringing. The instructions for "Mother's Almond Cake," with its "Almond Paste Filling" and "Boiled Frosting for Almond Cake," require three pages of text. "Cassava Pudding" - a backwoods treat - needs only a paragraph. The recipe was shared with Rawlings by a homesteader in the Ocala National Forest. The woman and her family had settled in the Florida scrub before it became a national forest.

The book's commentary is as revealing as the juxtaposition of recipes. Rawlings was aware. She knew that although she had lived in Cross Creek for years, she never truly could be of Cross Creek. In her preface to the recipe for "Sweet Potato Pone," she tells of the time she invited a local friend to Christmas dinner at Cross Creek. She spent days preparing an elaborate meal.

Afterwards, she told her guest the meal was an example of a typical Yankee Christmas dinner. She asked what his family would eat for a typical Florida Cracker Christmas dinner. Her friend's reply? "Whatever we can git, Ma'am. Whatever we can git." (Page 183)

Be sure you get the chance to spend some time with one or both of these classic books. Happy 75th Anniversary to a piece of Florida's past.

Learn more about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and her life and works from the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society: https://rawlingssociety.org

Racing through layers of history

This Halifax Historical Society photo in the
 book 'Daytona Beach: 100 Years of Racing'
 depicts the Stanley Steamer car driven
to a world record in 1906.

We’re nigh on to Speed Weeks: the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona just roared through the region the last weekend of January. It reminded me I’ve been remiss. I've never blogged about the early days of automobile racing in Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach on Florida's East Coast. 

That's partly because pictures of old racing cars all look alike to me. But it's mainly because I’m more drawn to the social history that surrounded the races than to things like engine specifications and speed records.

There's a lot of recorded history about the nuts and bolts, no pun intended. But precious little about the peripheral activities that occurred among the people involved.

I got enthused at the 1906 photo posted here because of the names mentioned, but my euphoria was short lived. The man in the driver’s seat is Fred Marriott, a name known to me for its hotel connotation. But I found no connection between him and the hotel family. 

Mr. Marriott is seated in a "#2" Stanley Steamer. I thought immediately of carpets. Unfortunately, the Stanley Steamer car has absolutely nothing to do with the Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning company.

So, even in my social history blog I have to resort to nuts and bolts on this subject. The photo is from the Halifax Historical Society and is pictured on page 17 of Daytona Beach: 100 Years of Racing by Harold D. Cardwell Sr. (Arcadia Publishing, 2002). 

The photo depicts a momentous event that has nothing to do with floor coverings or hotels. The caption notes that Marriott had broken a world record of 127.66 mph in the Stanley Steamer in 1906. 

That’s fast even by 21st century standards. It’s no wonder such speeds awed inquisitive spectators at a time when many people still referred to cars as horseless carriages.

Automobile racing was an expensive hobby from the start. The speed trials and beach races drew the era’s glitterati as both participants and spectators. Listen to the surnames of some of the racers, car owners, and spectators, sometimes one and the same: Vanderbilt, Flagler, Gould, Astor. 

They were the one percent of their time. Several helped found the Florida East Coast Automobile Association at the start of the 20th century, and built an oceanfront clubhouse. 

Tourist lodgings such as the massive Ormond Hotel -  demolished in 1992 - catered to the racers and car owners. They also hosted the fans who came to see them. I sometimes wonder if wives and families went along on these racing jaunts. 

Then, as now, winter weather in Florida was hard to resist. Most of the historic racing-related photos picture predominantly male crowds. The ladies may not have been interested. There were plenty of other things to occupy them. If only old photos could talk.

Amish pioneered in Florida

Road sign is in the North, a traditional
 location of Amish settlements. But
an Amish community in Florida dates
 to pioneer years. Creative Commons
photo credit: Daniel Schwen

The word Amish makes me think of rolling farmland and horse-and-buggy transportation on rural roads in the North and Midwest. Not fun in the sun in Florida.

That, despite my knowing that Pinecraft in Sarasota is a popular vacation destination for many Amish. The surprise, for me, is learning that Pinecraft was established in the 1920s by an Amish man who had a celery farm.

Suddenly the Amish are part of Florida pioneer history.

The Anabaptist community's roots in Florida are traced to a farmer named Daniel Kurtz, according to the website Amish America. The website cites a book titled The History of Pinecraft, 1925-1960, by Noah Gingerich. I can't find a copy anywhere except online for $90+ dollars  - not an option! -  and in Sarasota-area libraries - a good three- to four-hour drive from me.

There appears to be no in-depth history within my reach. I did find a 28-year-old news item in the Tampa Bay Times. It mentions that two of the earliest residents were of the Yoder and Miller families, and that streets are named after them. Sorry I can't link to the article, as I had to log in to read it via the duPont-Ball research library at Stetson University. The March 7, 1989 item is bylined Pat Fenner.

According to the article, Daniel Kurtz was Old Order Amish, and he and his family moved farther south in 1925 after finding Tampa too worldly. He and his family settled "a long horse ride away" from Sarasota.

Others must have soon followed suit. The multi-author book The Amish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) notes that a "handful of farmers" (location 4424 in Kindle) bought land for celery farming on the outskirts of Sarasota in the late 1920s.

Florida land prices skyrocketed in the early 1920s during the Florida boom, which collapsed in 1926. Either Kurtz started his farm at the height of the boom, or he and the others scooped up acreage at reasonable prices after the market crashed. Both Amish America and Wikipedia mention that Pinecraft had previously been the site of the Sarasota National Tourist Camp. Perhaps the camp was a victim of the crash.

Word of Florida seems to have traveled quickly. In Amish Society (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, 4th Edition), author John A. Hostetler says elderly Amish began vacationing in Florida "as early as 1927" (page 358) for health reasons. Pinecraft became kind of a resort for them.

It remains so today. Thousands of Amish travel to Pinecraft by bus each year and, once in town, get around on bicycles. A resource about the modern-day scene is the blog Pinecraft-Saraosta by resident Katie Troyer. She writes about the regular goings-on in town and seems to know just about everybody.

So there you have the extent of my knowledge of early Pinecraft. Many questions, few answers. I'll keep digging. My husband and I have traveled throughout most of Florida, but not yet to the Sarasota region. Time to plan a mini-getaway. History awaits.

From Google Maps

Sweet recipe for sweet potatoes

Easy to make and tasty to eat! This was made
from the adapted recipe, using homegrown
sweet potatoes. (Gerri Bauer photo)

(If you're here for the recipe and not the blog post, skip right down to the end of the post!)

Recently, I read that some Hastings, Florida, potato-chip farmers are diversifying into sweet potatoes. The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences article called the tubers a re-emerging crop. I never realized sweet potatoes had vanished from the state's farms. A weevil caused the industry's demise about 30 years ago.

The crop was a standard item during pioneer years. One old history book talks of a famous "Forty to a Hill" sweet potato venture established commercially in Alachua County in 1891. Specifically, in tiny Waldo, which has a population today of about 1,000.

I didn't quite get 40 sweet potatoes out of the one I planted last spring, but it was a healthy harvest. The taters were tender and yummy, and cultivation was minimal. Actually, I was kind of surprised at the result. My husband and I were experimenting when we planted one potato in an old recycling bucket filled with a mix of oak leaves and pine straw. We did little except incorporate organic fertilizer into the soil-less mix when planting, and then water during dry spells.

Ease of cultivation helped make the tasty tuber a nutritional staple for pioneer settlers. In a letter to the Florida Agriculturist newspaper in 1892, one poor newcomer to the state bemoaned that "I am so tender that I even don't know how to grow sweet potatoes." He was ashamed to admit it.

The editors obliged him with cultivation information. But the advice included a suggestion to add tobacco stems to the soil to provide potash. Wonder how that worked out. Elsewhere in the same issue another reader wrote that sweet potatoes cost 70 to 80 cents a bushel that year.

After our big harvest, we let the tubers cure for a couple of weeks and started to feast on them - plain except for butter added to the cooked potatoes. But who can resist sweeter sweet potatoes during the holidays? For Christmas dinner, I made Orange Sweet Potatoes that were a big hit. The preparation is super simple.

My recipe is adapted from one by a cook named Elsa Wiedemann. Hers is featured in Treasured Recipes, the 1983 cookbook published by the Guild of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach.

The differences from the original recipe is my addition of maple syrup when reheating, and one change in preparation. If you cook the dish the night before, the sauce thickens on its own in the refrigerator overnight. It stays nice and creamy when reheated. (The original recipe calls for the sauce to be boiled down to a thick consistency on the stovetop after the potatoes are cooked and removed.)

If you think about it, either version could easily have been made by a pioneer Florida cook. Except she or he likely would have used cane syrup as the sweetener.

You don't need to wait until a holiday to make this. Enjoy!

ORANGE SWEET POTATOES WITH MAPLE SYRUP
4 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter
Dash salt
1/3 cup real maple syrup, or more to taste

Pare the sweet potatoes, slice thickly, and place in saucepan. Add all other ingredients except the maple syrup. Bring to a boil and let simmer until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool and store in microwaveable container. Chill overnight in refrigerator. Before reheating, stir in the maple syrup. Reheat and serve.

Here's the original recipe if you'd like to try it, too.

'

The man in 'Ellis' Garden'

Double CD of Americana-
folk music is a fundraiser 
for the Pioneer Settlement.

A song on the new Songs of the Settlement folk-music CD sent me scrambling for one of my old journalism clips. It was a bittersweet journey, well worth taking.

The Americana/folk-music double CD was created by multiple singer-songwriters as a fundraiser for Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts. Regular readers know I'm a fan - and a member - of the living-history museum that resembles an old Florida town. My fiction is set in pioneer Florida, and the Pioneer Settlement showcases that era and way of life.

Disclaimer aside, let's get back to the CD. I bought my copy at the Fall Country Jamboree last month, with full expectation of liking the songs because I like Americana music.

And, yes, I do like all the songs. But one really, really touched me:  Lauren Heintz's song "Ellis' Garden." It's a beautiful ballad about a man who once tended the large garden at the Settlement, using the knowledge and dedication gained from a lifetime of living close to the land. The poetic song captures the essence of that gardener - whose full name was Ellis Price and whom I met and interviewed for a newspaper article in 1993.

The resulting article is pictured below. I'd like to quote a part that still resonates with me:

"Price spends most of his days plowing, cultivating or harvesting crops from soil that ranges from a sandy loam to the rich muck of a reclaimed lake bottom. He guesses he would tend the garden at night, too, but for the lack of light. But never on Sunday. And, sometimes, not when the fish are biting. 'My buddy says for every day you take off for fishing, the Lord gives you an extra day,' Price said ..."

At the time of our interview, Ellis had been growing produce for 60 years, since he was a child in the 1920s. He had first-hand knowledge of early Florida ways. He applied a blend of old and new approaches to his gardening - using hand tools at the Settlement, but tilling with a tractor at home. He always planted by the moon's phases, just as his father had done.

Old cultivars that rated high on Ellis' list included zipper cream peas and running conch peas. He also grew beans, greens, tomatoes, okra, sugar cane, pickling cucumbers, cotton, and corn. The corn was the hybrid sweet 'Silver Queen,' which I believe was the cultivar of Zellwood fame years ago.

The song "Ellis' Garden" closes by saying the Settlement isn't the same since Ellis is no longer with us. I thank Lauren Heintz for returning him, if only for a few minutes at a time. The artistry of the ballad's three minutes tumbled me back nearly a quarter-century. How well I remember the bright spring day I and photographer Kelly Jordan met with Ellis Price at the Settlement garden. Time slowed for a few hours. And goes by much too fast today.

I wrote this article about
Ellis Price for the West Volusia
 'New Volusian' section of the
Daytona Beach News-Journal
in 1993.