Frederick Delius in Solano Grove

(Photograph of Delius House on campus of Jacksonville University, courtesy Florida Photographic Collection, State Library and Archives of Florida)




Born in 1862, in England, to German parents, Frederick Delius never excelled in his father’s wool business, and came to Florida in the 1880s to grow oranges. As it turned out, he wasn’t that good at growing oranges either, but in Florida, his musical talents thrived.

Delius lived in a cottage in Solano Grove, about 45 miles south of Jacksonville, on the St. Johns River. It was a small house, four rooms, and was already old by the time he got there. But in that house, and in the groves that surrounded his isolated home, Delius soaked in the sights and sounds of the people and animals of Florida, then still unknown to most Europeans.

In Jacksonville, Delius met Thomas F. Ward, a musician from New York who became his teacher. Later, Delius studied music in Europe. Although Delius’ stay in Florida was short, just a few years, the experience was key to many of his subsequent orchestral and operatic works, including the Florida Suite.

Gloria Jahoda wrote about Frederick Delius (“The Music-Maker of Solano Grove”) in her book The Other Florida, recounting her visit to his former home:

Pines stirred in damp woods. Pileated woodpeckers flew high in the trees. Here the Andersons and Julia Sanks had sung to Delius long ago. Here the Indians and the crackers had come to join them to startle European music.

Delius died in France in 1934, but in 1946, themes from his Florida Suite inspired the soundtrack for The Yearling. In 1961, his house was moved to the campus of Jacksonville University.

(The Delius House is illustrated and discussed in Jacksonville's Architectural Heritage: Landmarks for the Future, a really great book available through the Jacksonville Historical Society.)

Al Capone Really Did Live Here

Last month was the 60th anniversary of Al Capone's death in Miami Beach. And the Chicago Bears are in town for the Superbowl. So here are some recent articles about Capone and his Palm Island home, which is for sale.

"Original Vice in Miami" (Chicago Tribune)
"Capone's Neglected Place in the Sun" (Chicago Sun-Times)
"Capone Was Chicago Like No One Else" (Orlando Sentinel)

And an article from a Chicago paper about the death of Mayor Anton Cermack in Miami ( A quote: "A case could even be made that Miami owes us one -- though I shudder at the possible ways its citizens might choose to make it up to us, which admittedly could have something to do with me reading too much Florida crime fiction.")

Salhaven

In southern Florida, the Town of Jupiter is considering annexation of Jonathan’s Landing. Now, there’s nothing particularly unusual about that, and while Jonathan’s Landing is an upscale golf course community, what preceded it was out of the ordinary.

Salhaven was a 1950s retirement community built for members of the Upholsters International Union. The name “Salhaven” referred to longtime union president Sal B. Hoffman. Hoffman envisioned a self-contained village where northern retirees could bask in the tropical sun alongside former co-workers. Salhaven had a lounge, a restaurant, an arts and crafts center, an auditorium, a cafeteria, and an educational building. A key service and feature of the Salhaven development was a convalescence center where retirees and non-retired union members received long-tern medical care. All of the buildings, including the houses, were built in a simple yet modern architectural style.

Salhaven received national press coverage, and was featured in the New York Times and Time magazine. However, the village never really caught on with its intended residents, who may have been reluctant to leave family, friends, and all that was familiar to move to an isolated part of Florida.

In the 1970s, a group of medical doctors bought Salhaven and sold 600 acres for what became Jonathan’s Landing. The Salhaven convalescence center evolved into the Palm Beach-Martin County Medical Center, which is now the Jupiter Medical Center.

Miami Super Bowl Venues

According to the official Super Bowl website, this Sunday's game will be the 9th Super Bowl played in Miami, and the 4th at Dolphin Stadium. The other 5 were played at the Orange Bowl.

Originally named Burdine Stadium in the late 1930s, the Orange Bowl was renovated and enlarged periodically over the years. In the 1960s it could seat 80,000, and acquired a MiMo flair.

Dolphin Stadium, designed by HOK Sport, opened in 1987. To prepare for Super Bowl LXI, the stadium underwent renovation and construction work. The City of Miami is redeveloping the Orange Bowl.

For local coverage of the Super Bowl and tips on visiting Miami, check out Dave Barry's Blog.

Of Yellow Jessamine

The recent warm weather and rain brought yellow jessamine flowers. In February 1872, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote from her Florida home: "To-day is mail-day, and as the yellow jessamine is in all its glory, the girls here are sending little boxes of it North to their various friend through the mail." The mail was carried from Mandarin on a steamboat down the St. Johns River.

Soon after Stowe wrote Palmetto Leaves, calling yellow jessamine "the very Ariel of flowers,--the tricksy sprite, full of life and grace and sweetness," another writer from the North moved to St. Augustine. Constance Fenimore Woolson's Florida novels reflect the cultural and racial struggles and dilemmas of the time; however, she also wrote poetry, including "Yellow Jessamine":

The Southern land, well weary of its green
Which may not fall nor fade,
Bestirs itself to greet the lovely flower
With leaves of fresher shade;
The pine has tassels, and the orange-trees
Their fragrant work begin:
The spring has come—has come to Florida,
With yellow jessamine.

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski

I just finished reading Strawberry Girl, by Lois Lenski. It's a children's book, about pine woods Florida settlers at the turn of the century. The title character is Birdie Boyer, a girl who helps her family grow and sell strawberries. The Boyers live in the Roddenberrys' old house -- the Roddenberrys left Florida after the 1895-1896 freezes nearly killed all their orange trees. The Boyers are hard-working farmers who grow strawberries for northern markets. They nourish the soil, feed their livestock, and fence their land. Their children go to school and church. Providing contrast are the Slaters. Their cattle tromple the Boyer's strawberry patch, their children beat up the teacher, and in a drunken rage Mr. Slater shoots the heads off all their chickens. It's hard to say which family is more likeable.

Lenski wrote Strawberry Girl in 1945, several years after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling won the Pulitzer Prize. There are similarities between the two --- Cracker culture, battles between hard-working and lazy neighbors, farmers struggling against the elements... The Yearling is better, but Strawberry Girl is not bad. It was good enough to win Lenski a Newberry Medal in 1946. Strawberry Girl was the first in Lenski's regional series of children's books, each set in a different locale (for example, an Iowa corn farm and a West Virginia mining town).

Lenski packs a lot of information and morality into 150 pages, and I suspect this is a book that parents and teachers wish that children would want to read, rather than a book kids will sit down with on a summer day. However, the Central Florida Memory program has a nice 4th grade unit available online.

Road Trip to Clearwater

OK, Clearwater isn't exactly the other side of the world from where I live, but it's not really on the way to anywhere. You have to intend to go there, it doesn't just happen.

The drive started peacefully, passing Tampa Bay Downs, with thoroughbreds training in a gauzy morning light. Then on to Oldsmar, a small town island in a sea of sprawl. The Sun Groves store in Safety Harbor is a reminder of times past as well, of tourists shipping fruit by the boxful to family and friends -- a nice way of saying "I'm in Florida, and you aren't."

There aren't many groves left in Pinellas County. US 19 is lined deep with shopping centers -- who buys all this stuff? Traffic going into downtown can be snarled, but it wasn't too bad this morning despite some closed streets. In downtown Clearwater you won't see many tall buildings, but there are a lot of people wearing white shirts and black pants. One of my favorite buildings is the Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church -- how often do you see a pink church?

The Clearwater Main Library is in a new building, opened 2004. The reference section is very comfortable (I particularly like the reading lamps), but the best part is the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Coachman Park and the new Memorial Causeway Bridge. (Some pilings from the old bridge are still there.)

With a sandwich from the library's cafe, I was on my way home, past the original Hooters on Gulf to Bay Boulevard, on to the Courtney Campbell Causeway, and back to my side of the bay.

Updates on State Song and Mini Golf

Today's Tampa Tribune is running a story about the state song ("Racist Screed or Enlightened Work?") that y'all should check out, and perhaps leave a comment in the accompanying forum. (I was interviewed for the Tribune article, but got left on the cutting room floor!) Whether or not the song ever changes is not as important as getting people talking about what it means to be a Floridian.

One of the other controversial state songs mentioned in the article, Maryland, My Maryland, has a vague Florida connection. They lyrics are a poem written by James Ryder Randall, who before the Civil War spent some time on Atsena Otie (Cedar Key) as Augusta Steele's tutor. Augusta was the daughter of Augustus Steele, an early settler of both Tampa and Cedar Key, and later married James Matheson of Gainesville.

(Original post: Florida's State Song)

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Yesterday Tim Hollis sent me a nice email. He has a new book coming out later this spring, The Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories. And yes, I have started reading his previous books, Florida's Miracle Strip and Dixie Before Disneyland!

(Original post: Miniature Golf)

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Update to the Update:
February 28, 2007
There's more talk of changing the state song...

"Famous or Infamous?" (from the St. Petersburg Times)

"New State Song?" (from Q: The Florida Politics Blog, on Palm Beach Post)

A Great Oak Was Once A Little Acorn -- Happy Florida Arbor Day!

National Arbor Day is in April, but winter is a better time to plant trees in Florida, so here it's celebrated on the third Friday in January. Which happens to be today --so go plant a (Florida native) tree!

And speaking of Florida trees, USF's Chinsegut Hill Conference and Retreat Center north of Brooksville is home to the Lenin Oak. In 1917 when this acron sprouted, Chinsegut was owned by Raymond Robins, who was off in Russia serving as head of the American Red Cross there, and working as a diplomat in a country going through "interesting" times. In the course of his work, he became acquainted with Vladimir Lenin, so his wife named the new tree the "Lenin Oak." Later, after Robins died, a plaque was placed near the tree. In 1961, during the Cold War when anti-Soviet sentiment was high, a group of Boy Scouts found the plaque. Their incensed leader notifyied the newspapers, and with the involvement of senators and such, a major brouhaha erupted. The USDA, which was running Chinsegut as an experimental agricultural center, ordered the removal of the plaque, which was melted down and pitched into a nearby lake.

Another noteworthy oak is Jacksonville's Treaty Oak, in a small urban park (Jessie Ball duPont Park). Legend has it that Andrew Jackson and Chief Osceola met under this tree to sign a treaty. That story is unfortunately false, but the tree is still important. In 1984, Jeffrey Meyer had a family picnic under the Treaty Oak, and his son picked up some acorns. They planted a nut in their yard, where it grew quite well. An idea also grew, and Meyer started American Forests' Famous and Historic Tree Program, where you can buy "offspring of trees connected to famous people, events, and places." JEA (Jacksonville's utility company) also grows seedlings from the Treaty Oak.

Miniature Golf

This weekend I played a round of mini-golf at Tampa Grand Prix (used to be Malibu Grand Prix). Not particularly "Florida," although there is a pirate, and not particularly historic, although it is aging.

Miniature golf is a great family activity --it's (usually) outside, it involves physical activity and strategy, it's appropriate for all ages, and it gives people a chance to talk to each other. All in all, a great fit for a place like Florida, with its tourist orientation and nice weather, right? Unfortunately, rising land values are leading developers to buy out mini golf courses. Also, the "mom-and-pop" courses face competition from some elaborate newcomers, like Disney's Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland.

In 2004, the St. Petersburg Times reported there were only about 200 mini golf courses in Florida, compared to 3,000 in 1930 ("Mini Golf Says Bye to Kitsch, Hello, Glitz"). Bayfront Golf in St. Augustine promotes itself as the oldest mini golf course in Florida (1949), but the ultimate is Panama City Beach's Goofy Golf (Agilitynut.com offers several pages of photos).

Tim Hollis is the author of a book I want to read -- Florida's Miracle Strip: From Redneck Riviera to Emerald Coast. In it, he writes about Goofy Golf and other tourist attractions along the Panhandle's Miracle Strip.

A remnant of a Jacksonville mini-golf course has been hitting the local news lately ("Beach Blvd. Dinosaur Gets New Life" and "Ash Properties Works with UNF to Restore T-Rex on Beach Boulevard"). Originally part of Sir Gooney Golf, this quite large roadside dinosaur was about to be taken down to make way for a shopping center, but local sentiment led the developer to refurbish the beast instead.

Some brief histories of mini golf available online:

"Miniature Golf History" (U.S. Pro Mini Golf Association)

"A Brief History of the Nature of Miniature Golf" (Miniature Golf Association US)

"Simply Putt: Mini-golf is an Art Form" (Jonathon Haeber)

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Update on Mini Golf