Chapter 5 - Letters from Florida
Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5,
Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Biography of Editor
JOHN H. WEAVER HOME FROM FLORIDA
Tells of His Return Trip.
Interesting Account Prepared For Benefit of "Review" Readers.
Ephrata, R. D. No. 4
March 20, 1926
To the Ephrata "Review" and the friends at home:
Due to the expression of disapointment by many of you, in regard to my writing to you through the columns of the "Review" only once, and being urged by the editor, I consented to write this, another letter.
Upon referring to my previous article, I notice I told you how we traveled, and how we fared day by day, until Thanksgiving day. Now I shall only tell you of special happenings as I remember them.
First, we enjoyed a very prosperous trip to and from Florida, as well as our four and one-half months' stay there. We had no reverses at any time. The old Ford held out faithfully under the most severe tests. We experienced no engine trouble in all our 5,000 miles of travel and touring to and through Florida, and we had very little tire trouble, but I had to resort to sticking plaster in order to hold the window glass in place until we reached home.
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Barefoot Children |
Our first Saturday afternoon in Kissimmee proved very interesting to us, as well as to the Kissimmeeans. Plain people in Kissimmee are not familiar, and the people would stop to gaze at Mrs. Weaver and myself as we walked the pavements of their town. Not a few people stopped us and inquired what we represent. This gave us an opportunity to commit ourselves as to our faith, etc. The Kissimmeeans proved very interesting to us, as well as we to them, in the way of dress. It was not an uncommon happening to see a man wearing a large heavy overcoat and a straw hat, and perchance a bare-footed child running by his side, or seeing a young lady wearing a large heavy fur coat and collar, etc., and her girl-friend by her side, dressed entirely the reverse. Draw your own conclusions and comparisons and these two extremes were noticeable in either cold or hot weather.
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Tampa Bay |
On Christmas day we took a trip to Tampa and St. Petersburg on the west coast, a distance of 95 miles from our boarding house at Campbell Station. We had a very delightful trip. The weather was ideal. We returned home to our boarding house at nine o'clock in the evening well pleased, but very tired. At Tampa we crossed the famous Gandy bridge that spans the Tampa Bay and connects Tampa with St. Petersburg. The bridge is six miles in length. We paid 95 cents to cross on it.
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St. Petersburg |
At St. Petersburg we boarded a vessel laying in the harbor and were very courteously shown through the ship by a very polite young sailor who asked me in course of conversation if I was a parson. I informed him that we are Mennonites, wherefore we dress as we do. Whereupon I asked him if he had never heard of the Mennonites, and he answered. "I think I read about them somewhere in the Bible." I did not press the point any farther, but thought perhaps the young man had his Bible on a pretty high shelf. Don't You?
Saturday and Sunday following Christmas we took a trip to Sebring. Sebring is about 80 miles south of Kissimmee. We drove through thousands of acres of orange groves. Our first stop was at Barto, where we made a call on the B. J.. Bucher family. Mrs. Bucher is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Musselman of New Holland, and with the Bucher family was Mrs. Katie Geigley, widow of the late George W. Geigley, who was a fellow carpenter with us a few years ago in Ephrata, and at one time drove the feed truck for Mr. J. E. Holsinger.
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A Sebring Farm |
Saturday evening, about 4 o'clock, we arrived in Sebring. Here we met the Henry Fasnacht family, formerly from Lincoln, Pa., and with them was Frank Fahnestock and wife of Ephrata. Here we also met Abraham Fry and his nephew Jacob from Lincoln. These were all well-known people to us. We got accommodations for the night at a neighbor's house. We had lunch with us. (I want to inform the readers here that all cities in Florida were so crowded with tourists at this time of the year that it was almost impossible to get a bed or a place to sit down to a table to eat, not only at a hotel, but every private home was full. Now I don't want anyone to think that Mr. and Mrs. Fasnacht did not show us due respect. I cannot see today yet how they accommodated all of their regular boarders and roomers in their limited quarters.) Well after supper, and all arrangements for the night being made, we spent a delightful evening visiting our Ephrata friends at Sebring. Here we met Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Burkholder of Kleinfeltersville, Pa.
The next morning we took our breakfast with the Fasnacht family, for they insisted that we eat with them before we returned home. After breakfast, Mr. Fasnacht took us out through the town, and surrounding territory in his new automobile to show us where they live. I cannot describe Sebring here but let it suffice to say that it is a pretty place.
We next went to the Brethren church where we heard several talks as to how the Brethren church at Sebring was started with a small beginning, and today has a large membership. After church service we took dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Burkholder, after which we started for home, at Campbell Station, arriving there about 6:00 P.M., tired but considering the time and energy well spent. Next morning I resumed my work at Interocean City. Last but not least by any means we met Mr. L. C. Wolf at Sebring. Mr. Wolf keeps us well posted on happenings in and about Sebring thru the "Review" columns. Keep it up Mr. Wolf, we all like to read your letters.
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It may be in order to state here that we also met Mr. Peter Reitz from Lancaster at Sebring, who paid us a call at our Interocean home in company with Mr. Jacob Fry from Lincoln the day before we started for home. I am told that Clyde Kurtz of Ephrata also came to pay us a visit just a few hours after we left for our home. We are sorry we missed seeing him.
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The Baptist Church |
We attended church services somewhere almost every Sunday. We mostly attended the First Baptist Church at Kissimmee, as well as a Missionary Baptist Church at Campbell Station, near our boarding place. We found these two churches to be deeply spiritual and believe them to be a great power for good in their respective fields of labor. We took an active part in the Sunday School work at the two places. We were shown due respect at both these places, and felt very much at home in them.
As to the climate, soil, crops, ___tion, and the real estate with its possibilities, etc., together with Chills, Mosquitos, Ticks, Redbugs and Chiggers, etc, etc, etc., which you are all curious to know all about, I shall make no comment upon, but will let that for the Florida booster and the Florida knocker, respectively. As for the mosquitos, they never molested us, whether in our tent or in the house. Neither were we molested by the Negroes at any time, but rather respected by them.
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Interocean Campground |
On the 10th of March we pulled up stakes at Interocean City camp, where we lived the last few weeks of our stay in Florida, for Ephrata, Pa. We left Kissimmee at 9:00 o'clock A.M., and stopped at St. Augustine for the night. We set up our tent at a tourist camp. That night it rained and I got some of my bed clothing wet by letting it hang out of the machine between the curtains. Well we dried my bed next day by hanging it on a wire fence. On the 11th we slept at a tourist rooming house at Waycross, Ga. At Waycross we took the woodpecker route to Augusta, Ga., where we stopped for the night on the evening of the 12th. Here we once more set up our tent.
Next morning we continued our trip northward thru North Carolina. About 2:00 P.M. at Lexington, it began to snow and we encountered a real blizzard, snow and cold. On the evening of the l3th, we stopped at the McBee Hotel, a small town in the northern end of North Carolina. The next morning it was clear and cold, and the ground was covered with snow and frozen hard. There were two inches of ice in a vessel of water in the kitchen that morning. It was cold. On the l4th we arrived at Henderson, N.C., where we stayed over night at a private rooming house. It was still very cold. On the 15th we found a fine stopping place near Bowling Green, about 50 miles South of Fredericksburg, Va., at a farm house which had accommodations for tourists.
On the 16th at 7:00 P.M. we reached home. Our two children were at home and had the fire started in the furnace, and the house was warm, awaiting our coming. They did not expect us before the 19th or 20th, and you can well imagine they were not at all out of humor but well in humor when they recognized the familiar honk of our old Ford, even though we did come a few days before they expected us.
As for myself, I will candidly confess that the old "Reliable Broom Factory", never in all my lifetime looked so pretty and splendid as it did that evening when the light of our automobile disclosed it from the darkness and brought it to our view.
With no disregard to Florida, or any of the other states through which we passed, there is no place like home.
Yours very respectfully,
JOHN H. WEAVER.
P.S. To whom it may concern, I will not resume the broom business this spring.
Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5,
Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Biography of Editor