Moonlit night, full of mosquitoes

Look familiar? Not to me. The image from a
  Sun-Sentinel news feature shows Fort
 Lauderdale beach in the 1920s.

These days, fourteen hour of travel will take you more than halfway around the world. A hundred years ago, the full fourteen hours were needed just to get a person from North Florida to South Florida. 

In his autobiography, Gold Coast Pioneer (Exposition Press, 1953), M.A. Hortt describes the journey he took in 1910:

The train left Jacksonville at nine o'clock in the morning. It crawled along through the heat and mosquitoes almost at a snail's pace for fourteen long, weary hours, finally arriving in Fort Lauderdale at eleven o'clock that night. (100).

It was a beautiful moonlit night, he writes, during which he was almost devoured by mosquitoes.

The next morning, he discovered Fort Lauderdale's business district consisted of two stores. "There were no electric lights, telephones or paved streets" (101).

That wasn't the only surprise. Hortt was the designated representative sent to inspect land he and fellow Utah streetcar conductors had purchased west of Fort Lauderdale. He was to plant a test crop of tomatoes. When he got to Florida, he discovered the purchased land was underwater.

M.A. Hortt photo is
from his autobiography.

Conditions were blamed on the rainy season -- Hortt's visit was in June. Nonetheless, he soon turned his attention to real estate and went on to sell land in and around Fort Lauderdale for thirty years. He  served as the city's mayor in 1934-34. In his 1953 autobiography, he writes that he saw the area's potential right away:

"I thought I recognized great possibilities in Fort Lauderdale, with its beautiful waterways, sandy beaches, wonderful climate, bright sunshine, cooling ocean breezes and tropical verdure backed up by the fertile Everglades, and decided to take full advantage of this opportunity." (103-104)

If that sentence sounds promotional to you - it does to me! - keep in mind Hortt wrote those words decades after his 1910 arrival. Decades after successfully extolling the virtues of the area to would-be buyers.

Hortt did plant tomatoes, just not on swampland. His wife joined him in Fort Lauderdale and they bought a riverfront house on five acres. The garden tomatoes were a foot high, he writes, and growing alongside cucumbers, beans, cabbages, and squash when an October hurricane smashed  into the area, "raising havoc in general" (104) and raining for three days.

The Hortts evacuated to a hotel, where people fished from the front porch after the storm. The area had become one large lake. Hortt needed to use a boat to check on the family home. He found water lapping at the main floor, which was three feet above ground.

It's hard to imagine a rural Fort Lauderdale with five acres of riverfront land devoted to one homesite. Wikipedia says the city's population in 2017 was almost 200,000. 

It's also hard to imagine South Florida as outlaw country, but that's what it was back in the pioneer years. Hortt writes that he "grew up in the 'wild and wooly' West and thought all of the gangsters and bad men lived out there" (106). Once in Florida, he discovered the Ashley Gang. They were, he says, "as notorious as the Butch Cassidy gang out West" (106).

Something to think about next time I'm down in the giant metropolitan area Palm Beach-Fort Lauderdale-Miami has become. 

Corrupt politicians nothing new

Sarasota house built in the 1850s belonged
 to the earliest white settler, Bill Whitaker,
according to Yesterday's Sarasota author
Del Marth. This photo appears on Page 12.

In case you think our country's political shenanigans are a modern phenomenon, rest assured the Florida frontier had its share of nightmares. One occurred in what is today the South Florida city of Sarasota.

In the 1880s, elite politicians and corporations literally stole homesteaded land from settlers who'd already proved their claims. How? Politicians changed the law in order to circumvent the Homestead Act of 1862.

The Homestead Act granted ownership of 160 acres of federal land to a person who built a home on the acreage, lived in it, and farmed the land for five years. 

The 1973 book, Yesterday's Sarasota, by Del Marth, tells what happened next to Sarasota-region homesteaders who'd proved their claims, meaning they'd fulfilled requirements and now owned their land. 

In 1881, Florida politicians dug and found a  pre-1862 law that "gave the state all swamp and overflow lands in Florida," Marth writes. So they rewrote the state's land classifications and designated 22 million acres as swamp. Almost 700,000 of those acres were in the Sarasota area. 

Practically overnight, people's farmland was suddenly being called swampland. And, surprise, much of that new swampland ended up in the hands of land speculators.

The region was hardscrabble wilderness at the time, not the upscale city that is today's Sarasota. Still, for some people, it was home. The area was called Sara Sota, and it had a post office, school, and about 100 families. Suddenly, many discovered they were living in a swamp and that they no longer owned their land.

Things got darker. Twenty locals formed a vigilante committee and planned to retaliate against the speculators. In 1884, they killed two locals suspected of  cooperating with the land raiders. One, the postmaster, was shot while out gathering kelp, Marth writes. The other was shot off his horse. Stories like this are why frontier Florida is said to have resembled the Wild West in behavior.

As so often happens when individuals are pitted against larger, more powerful forces, the settlers lost. Marth writes that tax records of 1888 indicated the newly designated 700,000 acres of "swampland" ended up in the hands of eight companies. Three were railroad companies. One was a British company that Marth says "ultimately founded the town of Sarasota" by luring Scottish settlers with promises of estates in paradise. Things didn't go so well at first, as you can imagine. But that story is for another blog post.

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. :)

---

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)

Weird elections a Florida tradition

Courthouse in Enterprise when the 
community was the county seat.
(Photo credit: Florida Memory)

Weird elections are nothing new in Florida. One local fight was complete with "wire-pulling of all sorts," a near-mobbing, a man being shot at, and stealth transfer of official records. Lest that sound modern, please note: this election took place in 1888.

The fight was between sleepy Enterprise and upstart DeLand in Central Florida. At stake was the title of county seat, a prize for any frontier town's economy.  In 1888, Enterprise had already been the Volusia County seat for 34 years. But the riverfront town's prominence and population were slipping as the steamboat era waned.

DeLand was a brash, rising community, having been founded only 12 years earlier. By 1888, it had a larger population than Enterprise - 2,000 to 850, according to a newspaper letter reprinted in the 1976 book Reflections: West Volusia County, 100 Years of Progress. 

DeLand also had a bigger business district, a respected university, and leading citizens who used money and power to sway opinion.

One of those citizens was town founder Henry A. DeLand. He offered to donate land for a courthouse. He, his wealthy buddy John B. Stetson (the hatmaker), and another friend named Fred S. Goodrich, committed $15,000 to build a courthouse at no charge to county government. Provided, that is, the county seat be moved to DeLand. The information is documented in Reflections and in the local DeLand history book written by Henry's daughter, Helen Parce DeLand, in 1928.

Helen's book, Story of DeLand and Lake Helen, Florida, describes the electioneering as a "hot campaign of speech-making, newspaper broadsides and wire pulling of all sorts." She uses the quote marks in her book, so the description must have come from an earlier publication, perhaps a newspaper.

One "ardent" campaigner was a DeLand-based attorney and citrus grower A. G. Hamlin. (The Hamlin orange is named after him.)  Someone shot at him as he was heading home one evening. Foes from Enterprise, I presume, but you never know. He also was almost mobbed, Helen writes. No details are given.

Things were rocky from the start. DeLand attorney Isaac Stewart gave county commissioners - in Enterprise - a petition asking for a public vote on the county-seat question. The petition was signed by 825 people, which Reflections states was more than a third of the electorate (all men, remember, at that time). County commissioners couldn't or wouldn't cough up a second to the motion. They declared the matter closed.

Something called a "writ of mandamus" was issued that forced commissioners to reconsider. Cornell Law's website says, basically, that such a writ orders a government body to do its job.
The election took place on March 28, 1888. Results are shared in a number of local history books, including the two cited above. DeLand received 1,003 votes. Enterprise got 439. Other towns in the county also earned a few votes here and there, including 1 each for Ormond and New Smyrna.

Helen DeLand writes that "two or three thousand people gathered in the streets" of DeLand to celebrate. Festivities included use of an anvil and black powder. Something went awry and a local man was seriously injured.

Down in Enterprise, some residents filed a lawsuit to prevent the physical removal of county records. Local lore says DeLand men snuck the records out of Enterprise in the middle of the night. The stealth riders were on horseback. There's no documentation that proves this exciting story, at least none that I know of.

Construction of a courthouse in DeLand
started soon after the 1888 election.
   (Photo credit: Florida Memory)

The local leaders held to their promise and a courthouse was built in DeLand. The existing courthouse in Enterprise became a school for a while.

Today, 130 years later, DeLand remains the county seat of Volusia County. Enterprise eventually reverted to unincorporated status. Both places are revered for their historical value.

The drama of the 1888 election is long gone, but nasty political fighting remains sadly popular today.

Although election shenanigans still happen, some things do change. That $15,000 pledged for courthouse construction in 1888 would be worth about $415, 000 today. No courthouse could be built anywhere in Florida for that amount now.

Florida's first Catholic school

Saint Mary Star of the Sea students gather 
outside Mary Immaculate Convent in the
1890s in Key West. The school was attached
 to the convent and operated by the Sisters 
of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.
Photo credit: Florida Memory

Key West is famous for many reasons. A few don't align with typical Margaritaville lore. Such as the fact that the first Catholic school in Florida was in, you guessed it, Key West.

A handful of brave Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary ventured south, way south, from Canada to Key West, in 1868 at the request of Florida's then-bishop, Augustin Verot. 

The congregation's website offers an overview of the sisters' Florida history. It notes that the bishop, "Dreading the introduction of the Sisters to their first Florida summer," suggested an autumn arrival. Smart move, that.

The sisters' destination was the parish of Saint Mary Star of the Sea. The church was built in 1852. It was the first Catholic church in Key West and in all South Florida. And only the fifth Catholic church in Florida. 

The church today is a Basilica. To learn more about its history, check the footnote links on its Wikipedia page. They'll take you to archived history pages. (2024 update: The church's website used to offer a history book for sale but the web link no longer works.) 

Heat, humidity, and tropical climate aside, the sisters faced an adventure from the start. A fierce storm snapped the masts off the ship on which they traveled. They "prayed fervently for protection" and were grateful to reach their destination alive. But their first view of Key West didn't impress them, even though Key West was the largest city in Florida at the time. It had a population of about 5,000.

"A curious crowd of onlookers" met the sisters at the pier, where, thankfully, the church's assistant pastor also waited. And the sisters' first residence was a former Civil War barracks that was being used by locals as a goat barn. I kid you not. The story of the journey and arrival is on the congregation's website, with portions also posted on the current Basilica School of Saint Mary Star of the Sea's website.

One of the sisters died less than a year later from yellow fever, which also claimed the priests on the island. Life could be tough in Key West. Safe to say they weren't drinking margaritas on Duval Street.

The sisters persevered, as Catholic sisters always do. Within a decade, they had consecutively opened schools for local white children, local African-American children and local Cuban girls. Each group was in a separate school because of segregation laws. Students of all colors followed the same curriculum and were taught by many of the same teachers.

After 115 years of service, the sisters left Key West in 1983. Their legacy remains, though, in the parish, the school, church and in the descendants of the hundreds of youth they taught. What doesn't remain is the distinct character of Key West. Today, the island is almost a parody of itself.

Set aside labels, share some Spehovka

No matter your heritage, it's easy to agree
 that the savory sausage bread Spehovka
is delicious. (Photo credit: Gerri Bauer)

Everybody is labeled in this era of identity politics. Yet each label holds within it multiple complexities and distinct characteristics.

One of my labels is Slovenian-American. My paternal grandparents and other paternal-side relatives were immigrants from Slovenia, where their roots were centuries deep. They left their homeland when it was still part of Yugoslavia. Tiny Slovenia proclaimed its independence in 1991.

The outside world knew my father's family as Yugoslavian. Within the family, they were always Slovenian. And proud of it. That heritage passed to me. 

When I moved to Florida, I was delighted to learn there was a Slovenian community west of New Smyrna Beach. There aren't a lot of Slovenians in the world. I felt an immediate kinship, even though I'd never met anyone in the community.

The settlement began as Briggsville, and later became known as Samsula. It was founded in the early 1900s as a farming community and remains agricultural today. All kinds of vegetables were and are grown there: corn, peppers, squash, onions, cabbage, greens, etc.

Although named after a man from Bohemia named Lloyd Samsula, the community is Slovenian in heritage.  Many Slovene immigrants were among the earliest settlers, according to the history shared on the Samsula Woman's Club website. That history says the first to arrive were members of the Kravanja family in 1912.

Many other Slovenian family names are shared on that website and on the Samsula Historical Archive, a community history website. I searched for names from my family tree, including my grandmother's Kralj and great-grandmother's Habian/Habjan, but came up empty. As a newspaper reporter decades ago, I interviewed a Samsula woman who had started a Slovenian museum in her home. Many items on display - such as clothing and crafts - were somewhat familiar to me. But not enough for a full connection. 

When my parents moved to Florida many years ago, I was certain my father would find kindred spirits in Samsula. I encouraged my parents to attend an event at the SNPJ Lodge. The Slovene National Benefit Society organization/lodge has long served as Samsula's social hub.

My father's ethnicity is Slovenian. Yet he carries an Italian surname due to the name affixed to an abandoned orphan in my family tree. My father was informed by some people at the SNPJ Lodge event that he wasn't really Slovenian. The hand of friendship wasn't extended. Just the opposite. He never went back to an SNPJ Lodge event. I don't blame him.

Gerri Bauer photo

My dad's experience soured my enthusiasm for finding heritage kinship in Samsula. But I still bought the Woman's Club cookbook when it was first published. In that pre-internet time, Slovenian recipes in English were almost nonexistent. My family had a Slovenian cookbook, but it was written in Slovenian, a notoriously difficult language for non-natives.

I was dismayed to discover the Samsula cookbook's recipes for potica featured pecans. No, no, no. Potica is a sweet breadlike cake pronounced, roughly, in English as "poh-teet-za." This delicious treat has always been made in my family with walnuts, not pecans. I suspected the Samsula recipes were regional or country variations, and continued paging through the cookbook.

Then, I couldn't find any recipe for spehovka. Later editions of the cookbook may include the detailed steps for this savory sausage bread. To me, it's a Slovenian cultural treasure. My father wrote down his mother's recipe more than a decade ago and became known in the family for his delicious spehovka. I now make spehovka according to family tradition. The first time I made it, Dad happily supervised. I welcomed his advice. It's a challenging recipe.

Yet my family recipe is different than the spehovka recipes I've found in modern English-language Slovenian cookbooks, even some from the motherland. One of these modern recipes even calls for using bacon and eggs as the filling! Not in my spehovka.

Spehovka is one of my culinary specialties, along with Sicilian pizza and lasagna from the other half of my heritage, my maternal side. I'm a mix of cultures, as we all are. Even within our designated labels, we're different, as I learned with my exploration into the Florida Slovenians. We're all human, too, more similar than we sometimes care to believe.

Set aside the labels for a while. Sit down and share a slice of spehovka, or pizza, or sweet potato pie, or flatbread, or beans and rice, or kimchi, or chicken curry ... You get the idea.

1st Florida woman voted in 1915

This photo from Vero Beach Magazine shows
 Zena Dreier in elder years. She was the first
 woman to vote in Florida. In 1915, she voted
in Fellsmere. (Credit: Vero Beach magazine)

It's a busy election season in Florida, in case you haven't noticed. Perfect timing to remember the lady believed to be the first woman to vote in Florida. In 1915! Five years before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote.

I stumbled across this information in Vero Beach Magazine. I love local publications. They often provide historical information unavailable in larger media outlets. The story details what led to Mrs. Zena Dreier's vote in Fellsmere in 1915, and is fully available online. I first read the article in the print version of the magazine's June 2018 issue, while visiting relatives.

Fellsmere is hardly a metropolis even today. Wikipedia puts its 1920 population at 333 people. I'm guessing the 1915 population was even smaller. But Fellsmere was incorporated even then.

The settlement was launched by Fellsmere Farm Company. Magazine article author Mary Beth Vallar writes about the influence of activist Marian Fell Vans Agnew on incorporation. She was the daughter of Fellsmere's founder and wife of the attorney who wrote the city charter. That charter authorized women's right to vote in municipal elections.

Florida state legislators likely snoozed through charter review, the article theorizes. The article of incorporation that granted suffrage for women in Fellsmere received what appeared to be rubber-stamp approval in April 1915.

Two months later, Zena Annetta Matthews Dreier cast the first woman's vote in a Fellsmere city election. It was a big deal. The newspaper in Jacksonville - 200 miles from Fellsmere - even covered the news. A screengrab of the article is on the city clerk's website.

Zena, too, had connections to the Fellsmere Farms Company. The article says her husband was the company's top salesman. It's unknown whether she was a suffragette. It doesn't matter. She voted.  I hope all of you do, too.