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Museum was her life; the rest is local history
By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- For decades, Oma Cross cherished a mummy, death masks and a six-legged calf. "My hobbies are antiques," Cross once said. "I love anything old." In 1930, Cross established the city's second antique shop. She later served a combined 32 years as curator of the Haas and St. Petersburg Historical Society museums. "The greatest (museum) treasure may be the tireless, high-spirited Oma Cross," the St. Petersburg Times reported. In 1984, Cross received the key to the city. "This was a women with great courage," said Bethia Caffery, former Evening Independent reporter. "Her indomitable spirit wouldn't leave you." Oma Martha Baker was born in 1900 on her parent's Good Enough Farm. The Iowa native later hiked 4 miles to elementary school, drove a horse and buggy to high school, and graduated at age 15. After attending a South Dakota business college, Baker wintered in St. Petersburg in 1917 with her parents. She married four years later and persuaded her husband, shoe salesman Cecil Cross, to move here. "(It was) right after (the 1921) hurricane when there were palm fronds all over everywhere," recalled Cross, who first worked here as a McIntosh Awning Co. bookkeeper. With friend Glen Petty in 1930, Cross opened an antique store at the old Roy S. Hanna house on First Avenue N. The educational value of antiques, she believed, was immense. "Without an understanding of the past, there's no basis to build for the future," Cross said. She established her own antique business in 1931 at 146 Central Ave. "The clapboard building had such big holes in the walls you could throw a cat through them," Cross recalled. Ten years later, the mother of two children was divorced. She left her shop in 1945 to open another on Second Avenue N. In 1948, Cross became the Historical Society's recording secretary. She closed her store about four years later, when she was named curator of the society's museum at 335 Second Ave. NE. "I've never been a clock-watcher," said Cross, who often worked 12 hours daily. "The museum is my life." Cross married Spanish-American War veteran Charles Bayne in 1955. Her "Virginia gentleman" died seven years later. In 1963, pioneer Edna Haas donated her holdings at 3521 Second Ave. S to the historical society. "Mrs. Haas wanted to leave me the museum in her will," Cross admitted. "But I talked her and the lawyers out of it." The Haas Museum opened in 1962. It eventually included the Lowe House, a blacksmith's shop, a dentist's office, a depot with a red caboose and a 4,000-pound eagle's nest, the Independent reported. Cross found the nest in 1962, "50 feet up in a pine tree, back in the edge of (an Oakhurst) swamp," historian and museum president Walter Fuller wrote. Facing a possible $500 fine or 30 days in jail, she had nearly 40 gallons of glue poured on the 5-foot-thick, 8-foot-wide shell. Cross then paid $2,700 for a crane and about 20 men to move the nest to the Haas. She wasn't fined or jailed. "(Oma) was a women of steel who got what she wanted," said Mary Wyatt Allen of the St. Petersburg Museum of History's board of directors. About 1972, Cross became curator of the Haas Museum at 3511 Second Ave. S. Despite her marriage to Bayne, she was still known as Mrs. Cross -- especially to children. "Dear Mrs. Cross," began one of many letters. "The way you talked, you made me want to learn." The press noted that almost 5,000 youths visited the museum annually. At age 77, Cross was beaten and tied up inside her bungalow and robbed of jewelry and $800. "I hit one of them right in the stomach," Cross told police. "That's when he choked me." Cross was 5 feet tall, about 85 pounds. A hip injury and the museum's modernization sent Cross into retirement in 1984. "It was tough for her to accept the changes," said John Warren, 52, then on the museum's board of directors. "She had a lot of personality involved in the museum." In 1985, the Gallery at the Haas became the Oma Cross House. Cross died at age 89 in 1990, three months before the Haas was razed. All things should be shared, Cross once said. "Your birth date is the only thing that belongs to you."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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