Park Ranger Shelia Barnes beside the wood stove at Cross Creek
For a step back in literary time, baby boomer book lovers should visit Cross Creek, home of author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, on their next Florida vacation. Walking the grounds and buildings of the 1930’s Florida homestead is like entering a pre-wired world. Here, Rawlings’ wrote her novels, including Pulitzer Prize winner, The Yearling, at a manual typewriter on the screened-in front porch. That is, when she wasn’t cooking three-meals-a-day on the wood-fired stove or tending to Dora, the Jersey cow, before working in the citrus orchard.
Park Ranger, Sheila Barnes, greeted me on a visit to Cross Creek, officially known as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park. Dressed in period costume, Barnes told stories from her research covering 15 years of studying Rawlings’ life. Rather than reading a plaque or hearing a lecture, I felt as if I was in the 1930’s talking with one of Marjorie’s good friends or neighbors.
Make the Sweetwater Branch Inn in Gainesville your headquarters for a visit to Cross Creek. Home to the University of Florida, you can stop by the school’s library which houses the largest collection of Rawlings’ work, including her unpublished poetry.
Want to read more about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ life? This article at Literary Traveler is a good place to start.
Next time, I’ll continue my travels into Georgia to learn about another woman writer of the South with stops at Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home in Savannah or her farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Before I do, I’ll be checking out A Traveler’s Library, another site combining literature with travel.
Do you like visiting writers from the past? Post a comment to tell me about it. My literary travel list needs updating.
Disclaimer: This trip experience was provided by Gainesville/Alachua County VCB
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I think living history is a great way to connect to the past. Much better than most of the awful lectures we all heard in school.
Glad you featured one of my all time fave trips. We make St. Augustine our HQ and head over to the Yearling Restaurant (not open 7 days a week, so call first!) Good local review here http://www.florida-secrets.com/Restaurants/ENW/... or on our blog for econo & eco conscious florida vacation rentals.
PS Just reread your post and saw your request about writers from the past. Marjorie's cookbook is a fascinating look at life for women in wild Florida. “White Witch,” about Jamaica is from the recent past, as is “One Thousand White Women.” More stories OF the past.
Have you read “The Secret of Ron Moor Skerry,” about seals and children in Ireland, was rewritten as “The Secret of Roan Innish?”
Dana, thanks for the tips on the St. Augustine area. Your book recommendations sound like great reads. I was just south of Jacksonville for granny duties. Next time, I hope to build in more exploration time.
so interesting! i love visiting historical places and learning about them. thanks!
so interesting! i love visiting historical places and learning about them. thanks!
You should visit Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West, and on the other end of the country, his boyhood summer haunts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I want to visit Pearl Buck's farm in Pennsylvania some time. And of course New England is prime territory for all those early American writers. (Takes venturing into Yankee territory, of course.)
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