Florida Crackerlections: 56 Stories of Old Florida

By Edward S. Clark

In this book, Ed Clark tells stories he remembers hearing from his grandparents, as well as those from his own 63 years in Florida. A third generation Floridian, he brings to the reader the humor and perspective of old Florida before superhighways, chain stores and concrete block houses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257613724

Book preview

Preface

This book seeks to preserve some of the history and atmosphere of the old Florida. It is of a time before paved roads, of small close-knit communities, and of a pioneer people hacking out farms and raising families on the edge of wilderness.

You won’t read of the Vanderbilts or the Flaglers or any other high mucky-mucks in here. These are the farmers, the ranchers, the people who lived down the hard road or over the general store. They lived their lives with quiet devotion to their families, their work and their church. And every day brought a little joy, some sadness, much love and a bit of history.

Many of these stories were handed down through three generations; I to pass them on to my children and grandchildren. If they warm the edges of a stranger’s heart, or tickle his ribs after a hard day’s work, then I will have done my part in preserving a bit of the pioneer legacy.

At my age, I have serious problems trying to think of the Fifties and Sixties as anything but current events, but the young folks of Florida know these years only as history. Therefore, stories of these decades are included for their benefit.

When Barney Waters gave me the chance to write some old Florida stories for his weekly newspaper, the Merritt Island Press, I was delighted. We certainly didn’t know then that I would end up writing more than a hundred of them, or that they might some day be bound into a book.

Others saw the potential, and the need, before we did. To Barney, I give a heartfelt thanks. My wife Sherry gave up many Saturday afternoons while I wrote, and helped with both advice and typing. Bruce and Deborah Bacom helped with the computer work. And to the myriad others who gave words of encouragement, know that they are appreciated.

And I thank the characters in this book. They helped to make my life a rich mulligan stew of memories, of a Florida no longer here, but fondly remembered.

Chapter One

The Early Years

‘Are you ready for Judgement Day?’ the preacher thundered, ‘I’m ready, Gabriel, blow your horn!’ Pete picked up the cow horn, inhaled a mighty breath and let out his best and longest blast.

Miss Cobb posing with her pupils outside

a log school house ca. 1900

Coral Gables, Florida

Photo courtesy of Florida Historical Archives

The 4th ‘R’

The year was 1897. Young Edward Daniel Oglesby, age 8, had just received exciting news. The family would move from Sanford to the little frontier community of Lake Monroe!

Not only was it a wild area more than five miles from town, but it was on the St. Johns River, with its fishing and hunting lifestyle. But best of all, it had no schoolhouse. Therefore, he reckoned, it had no school! A blessed circumstance for the footloose eight-year-old.

But the times, they were a-changin’. Edward’s father met with other parents and soon came up with a building, a little one-room church which could be used for a school.

The father, also called Ed, was delegated to ride on horseback the twenty miles to Orlando to talk to the school officials of Orange County (Seminole County was a part of Orange at that time). The county agreed to pay one teacher, who would teach all grades.

The neighborhood boys took a look at the young schoolmarm, and judged that they could soon run her off. So frogs leaped from pockets in the middle of class; one morning the school was full of grasshoppers; daily distractions harried the new schoolteacher. Rumors abounded that young Edward was behind it all.

As Thanksgiving approached, cooler weather prompted morning fires in the old potbelly stove. The boys had the job of chopping the pine firewood and laying the fire with fat litard before school. Then the teacher, upon arrival, had but to strike a match to the wood to set it off

Autumn is a hard time for boys to stay inside. So a scheme was hatched. Along with the pine wood and fat litard, into the stove would go all the cow pies it could hold. The smell would require adjourning class for the day, and the boys could go fishing.

Now, fat litard is mostly flammable resins, and once lit it’s hard to put out. The schoolmarm lit it off, and for a few minutes it seemed okay. But the cow pies had almost jammed the flue, and as the fire grew, smoke backed up and belched from the stove. The students ran outside and watched as smoke began to pour through windows and doors.

By the time help arrived, the building was full of blinding, acrid cow pie smoke and there was nothing to be done but let it burn itself out. As parents asked questions, fingers began to point at Edward.

Family history is silent on what happened next. But there were no more frogs or grasshoppers in the classroom. And the new schoolmarm always looked in the stove before she lit it.

The experience must have been useful to young Edward, because 25 years later, he became a Trustee on the School Board of that same community!

Palatka, FL

Photo courtesy of Florida Historical Archives

Sip’s Last Stand

My grandfather, Ed Oglesby, was born in Palatka in 1888. Palatka being on the St. Johns River, he was a commercial fisherman in his youth, and later an alligator hunter in the Lake Monroe area.

When I was a child, the men of the family would sit out on the front porch on summer evenings and reminisce about the old days. One story I remember was about another relative, Uncle Sip Rabun.

Uncle Sip was much of a homebody, not given to taking week-long trips on the river in search of fish or game. But once, against his better judgment, he let himself be talked into going gator hunting.

There were three of them in the eighteen-foot launch, one to run the boat, one to snag the gator and one to split its head open when it was pulled close enough to the boat.

Gators are hunted at night. A light was shone through the clear water on the flat. The gator, lying on the bottom, was blinded by the light as a wire noose on a long stiff pole was slipped over his head. Then ensued a fight the length of which was mostly determined by the size and feistiness of the gator. Eventually, the reptile was brought close to the boat and dispatched with the ax.

Now, the first gator they came to was a good one, about 10 feet long. Grandpa slipped the noose over its head and the thrashing began. Uncle Sip looked on, leaning over the side of the boat with the ax and the light.

When the gator came up he was charging, which pushed Grandpa to the other side of the boat, leaving Uncle Sip with the light in one hand the ax in the other and facing two feet of toothy jaws open wide on the front end of a very unhappy, bellowing gator.

Uncle Sip dropped the light overboard, took the ax in both hands and made a mighty swing at that gator’s head, just as he had been told. But the gator’s head was swinging too, and it wasn’t where Uncle Sip expected it to be. The ax went clear through the boat’s hull right at the waterline. So there they were, three men in a sinking boat, with a mad-as-hell gator still in the noose and the hatchet man trying to explain what happened.

The launch sank. The gator got away. Three men spent the rest of the night trying to dry out and keep warm by a campfire. And Uncle Sip spent the rest of his life trying to live it down.

If I’d been him, I’d have moved to a state without alligators or relatives.

Photo courtesy of Florida Historical Archives

The Indomitable Betty

Carrie woke with the feeling that something was wrong. The cold of the January night had penetrated the house. There was no morning light showing outside her bedroom window, but something had awakened her.

A low moan came from the bedrooms. One of the children. It must be Betty, who was running a fever when she went to bed. She padded through the darkness of the unheated house by feel. In 1925 most frame houses had no electricity, and prudence required that the fire in the fireplace be put out at bedtime.

Her daughter’s face was hot. She shivered under the quilts. The nine-year-old’s knees were drawn up to her chest, and she moaned softly. A stomach ache? No. No fever with a stomachache. It must be an infection, in the abdomen. A reason for concern. At sunup, Betty was awake, and crying. Carrie sent her husband to bring Doctor Denton from Sanford.

The old doctor knew Carrie Oglesby well. She had assisted him at many childbirths in the Lake Monroe community. She would not have sent for him without reason, he thought as he followed Ed Oglesby’s pickup.

"Betty, what have you