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An enduring corner of Old Florida
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 2, 2000
[Times files]
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings moved to her home in Cross Creek in 1928 to grow oranges, but her writing bore more fruit.
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Such an enchanted place is Rawlings' old homestead at Cross Creek. For me, it's a trip back in time.
I make my pilgrimage in the fall. Days are finally mild enough to be comfortable, while the cool nights ripen the oranges in her old grove. When Rawlings moved to North Florida in 1928, she planned to write, but she hoped to make money farming citrus. Oranges failed to make her a household name.
She became world-famous for her novel The Yearling, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939, and for Cross Creek, a memoir published three years later. Both are lovely descriptions of a Florida harsh and beautiful.
Rawlings died in 1953. Her home is now a state historic site. The grounds are open daily without admission; ranger-led tours of her house cost $3 for adults and are given Thursday through Sunday by reservation. Sign up for the tour as soon as you arrive.
I get a kick out of standing on the front porch where she wrote her Florida stories between mighty drags on a cigarette and even longer pulls from a bottle of whisky. I imagine myself at the supper table where Rawlings entertained famous guests, including Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Frost and Margaret Mitchell. Some weekends rangers bake biscuits using Rawling's recipes. The line forms in the kitchen.
I'm just as happy sauntering through the grounds. I walk through the grove and check out her garden -- green beans, squash and tomatoes -- still maintained by volunteers. Rawlings' beloved redbirds scold from the live oaks. A bald eagle soars overhead.
I like to hunker under her magnolia tree, the most magnificent I've ever seen, and read from Cross Creek.
"It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its season flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time."
IF YOU GO
Cross Creek is in Alachua County, about 115 miles north of Tampa. To get to the state historic site, exit I-75 at Micanopy. Take County Road 346 east to State Road 325. Go south on SR 325 to Cross Creek. The grounds are open daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is free. The house tours are given Thursday through Sunday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., October through July. Tours are $3 adults, $2 ages 6-12. Each tour is limited to 10 people.
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