Thursday, October 29, 1925
Cold
Harry and Winifred called this AM before Ned had his breakfast eaten. He sleeps late these mornings. Had quite a visit with Harry who leaves this PM for Florida via Memphis. He goes from there by auto with some friends. It will be a lovely trip. He seems to like Florida and almost gave me the fever. Lots of people are going there and some are making money.
(Is Grandma writing about the beginnings of the great flight of people from the cold midwest to warm Florida?
Grandma wrote in her family history that during World War II, Harry was living in Denver and Winifred (his daughter) came to live with him. In Grandma’s own words…
“They rented an apartment and were keeping house when Winifred received the news that William (her husband) had been killed in action in north Africa. The shock caused her to mis-carry twin boys at seven months on April 3, 1943. They were all right apparently after two months in incubators and were able to leave the hospital. She named them Bruce Jordan and Brian William. They proved to be indeed a blessing for both Harry and Winifred, for, before their birth neither had a happy life, but now they had a reason to make a home. Neither liked the cold weather of Denver, so they went to Miami, Florida and lived (there) until Harry retired from the printing business. He had always felt as though he would like to live in the country so he bought a small pecan farm east of Monticello in northern Florida. The crop the first year was very good, but it turned out to be the only good crop that they had, so after a few years, they sold the farm and moved to Tallahassee where the boys would be close to good schools. “
FYI, Harry divorced Mabel, Winifred’s mother, in 1926.)
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I only met Winifred's twin boys once that I remember. They came to my wedding, so they must have been here for some reason, (no, they would'nt have come all the way from Florida just for my wedding)
ReplyDeleteCarol - I found a reprint of an old book in a bargain bin, Frederick Lewis Allen's "Only Yesterday/An Informal History of the 1920's". The book was written in 1931, so the history was really fresh.
ReplyDeleteMr. Allen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Lewis_Allen]
has a whole chapter on the Florida boom and bust, and he notes, "By 1925 they were buying anything, anywhere, so long as it was in Florida. ... blindly,trustingly... the stories of prodigious profits made in Florida land were sufficient bait." A lot of the land was useless and inaccessible. The peak was the summer and autumn of 1925, but all began to collapse in 1926 - with the final blow coming from a Florida hurricane, which hit the Gold Coast of Miami on September 18, 1926. "...four hundred dead, sixty-three hundred injured and fifty thousand homeless..." It's a fascinating book, stuffed full of items that find an echo in recent events. I wonder if your family was caught up in it, or just happened to live there?
Annie