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LIFE HISTORY of
MRS. EULALIA McCRANIE
(Florida)
It was a rather cold February day when
I kept my 2 o'clock appointment with Mrs. McCranie. Hers is one of the
earlier homes in the Springfield section of Jacksonville, where she has
lived for twenty-five years. Bright variegated azalias whose bloom tops
the handrail of the steps leading to the front porch are as yet untouched
by the cold winds prevailing for the past two days. Flowers and plants are
growing in greatest profusion, the well-kept lawn dotted with beds of
hardy annuals, while rose bushes flank the long sun room on the east. The
house fronts the north, and is nearly opposite the Springfield Methodist
Church on the corner of 6th and Market sts.
Mrs. McCranie herself answered the doorbell. A tall, erect woman, with
kindly face and bright blue eyes, only her snowy white hair would give a
hint of her age of seventy-two years. Her skin is clear and delicate.
She cordially welcomed me, and while the house seemed comfortably warm,
she said:
"We will go on into the dining room. I suffer very much from arthritis of
the spine, and have a favorite chair near the heater where I can rest
better."
She seated herself in a straight-backed dining chair near the partition
wall close to the circulating coal heater, placing me opposite in a well
padded rocker, and taking a suare pine board from the top of the heater,
she said:
"You have had a long walk in the cold, and if you will place your feet on
this board, you'll be surprised how it will send the warmth up through
your body."
I did as she suggested, more to test the novelty of such a "foot-warmer,"
than from any need of such comfort, and, as she said, it did give an
agreeable warmth. The board was a twelve-inch square of inch-thick fat
pine, which might be split up later on and used for kindling.
"Just an old 'cracker' custom," she said, as I thanked her for her
solicitousness.
"Mrs. McCranie, is it true that you are a descendant of the Indian
Princess, Ulalah, whose romantic interest in Juan Ortiz four hundred years
ago gave rise to one of the earliest historical love stories of Florida?'
I asked.
"No." she said, laughing, "but I was named for a Spanish Princess, of the
early days, Eulalia. She later became queen of Spain.
"My father, H. S. Williams brought my mother to Florida from South
Carolina just before the War between the States, locating near the present
town of Melrose, where I was born in November, 1866. This is about sixty
miles from Jacksonville.
"When I was four or five years old, a colony of South Carolinians settled
in Columbia County, between Gainesville and Lake City, and we moved there.
"In this section and all around Lake Santa Fe were beautiful,
well-producing orange groves at that time, and my father operated one of
these groves.
"As I grew up in that section, Melrose, Waldo, Hawthorne, and Starke were
popular as tourist towns. Canals were dug connecting Waldo with the towns
mentioned and others located on Lake Santa Fe, and a small steamer made
regular daily trips between these points. This was the only [?] of
transportation, as there were no railroads in that section.
'At Earleton, named for the Earle family of early settlers on the Santa Fe
River, there was a popular old hotel, called the 'Balmoral.' It
accommodated many famous travelers to Florida in the early days. I saw the
wreckage of this old hostelry when I was a very small child, just after
the war, but our fortunes were so disastrously affected by the aftermath
of the war that I have tried to forget everything concerning it, so do not
remember the names of any of these travelers, or who operated the hotel.
"Sixty years ago, Waldo was probably a better tourist town than
Jacksonville. South Florida, of course, had not then been developed.
"There were no small fruits or vegetables grown in that vicinity then.
Strawberries came in commercially in the Starke section about forty-eight
years ago. They were grown and shipped from there for a great many years
before the Plant City region was developed.
"The great freeze in 1889 destroyed the fine orange groves around Lake
Santa Fe and on down to Dade City. Grove owners did not then understand
cultivation, propagation, caring for with fertilization, smudging in cold
weather, and other things like they do now, and the destruction of the
citrus groves was complete.
"I was educated in the early Florida schools and went to a girls' school
in Columbia, S. C., where I was graduated in 1885.
"I met my husband, Hugh J. McCranie, and we were married in 1886. My
husband was a native of Georgia, and we located at Waycross, where we
lived for fourteen years. He was in the lumber business and became
associated with Mr. George Drew, one of the early Governors of Florida,
and they operated a sawmill at New Branford, on the Suwanee River, near
the present town of Ellaville in 1887 and 1888. G. B. Porter had charge of
the planing mills.
"By this time the railroads were being developed in Florida. The early H.B.
Plant System came in by way of DuPont and Live Oak, and went on to
Gainesville, then down farther south. My husband became an auditor for the
railroad company.
"In 1898, during the Spanish American War period, he was transferred to
Tampa, taking charge of the office there.
"At that time there was just one paved street in the city of Tampa, and
that was Franklin Street, which was paved with cypress blocks. Two or
three streets later were paved with those heavy blocks, but the loaded
drays, and the constant tramping of the horses to the delivery wagons
broke up the blocks and wore them down, so that they were very
unsatisfactory, then during heavy rains they would wash out and would have
to be replaced.
"It was after the Spanish American War that Plant Avenue, Hyde Park, and
the older sections were paved with asphalt.
"While we were living in Waycross my
husband purchased a beautiful bay saddlehorse, which he enjoyed riding.
After we moved to Tampa he had little time for riding and wished to sell
the animal. Learning that Col. Theodore Roosevelt was desirous of securing
a mount, Mr. Spottswood, father of our local commercial photographer, Jack
Spottswood, relayed the information to Mr. McCranie, who got in touch with
the popular 'Teddy,' with the result that the sale was concummated, and it
was this horse which led the popular hero up San Juan Hill.
"Yes, I am a firm believer in the Church and I do not believe its
influence is waning. It is just that there are so many people in the world
nowadays and there are diversified interests, so that they do not devote
the time to religious observances so much as in former years.
"Do I vote? Yes, I have voted since it has been permissible. I felt a
little strange at first, but now that so many women vote and serve as
clerks and tellers at the polls, one feels right at home. It is a
privilege to express one's preferment by voting, and I believe everyone
should avail themselves of this privilege as a duty.
"I am heartily in favor of the New Deal, and its results are apparent even
in my neighborhood. In former years, my pastor who lives across the
street, adjoining the Springfield Methodist Church, was often hard put to
it to take care of some of his flock. But the work furnished and the wages
paid to those in our neighborhood on the WPA are apparent, and if it is so
in this small section, what must its accomplishments and rehabilitative
affects be throughout the United States?"
On leaving my attention was called to the lovely paintings adorning the
walls of Mrs. McCranie's home, the work of her nephew, Hugh Colwell, a
local artist of ability. He has gone in lately for portraiture, and has
just completed a life-like portrait of Senator J. Turner Butler, and is
engaged on another of T. T. Phillips.
February 23, 1939.
Mrs. Eulalia McCranie
114 East 5th-st.,
(Native Floridian)
Rose Shepherd, Writer.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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