Wednesday through Sunday, October 9 to October
13, 2002
We tried to leave early on Wednesday morning, but somehow things always come
up. Late on Tuesday afternoon a beautiful Grand Banks trawler, One
Grand, came into the marina. Frank and Kate Dunn are Loopers from
Illinois who are on the first of three legs of their trip. Unfortunately,
they had run into a crab trap and had both the trap and the line wrapped around
one of their props. We had to delay our leave taking to watch the haul and
share stories. Fortunately there was no damage and One Grand was soon back
in the water. Frank and Kate plan to cruise along the western Florida
coast visiting some of the same places we have on our itinerary. It would
be nice to cruise along with them, but now they will be a week ahead of us.
We packed our clothes and Lucky, our yellow
parakeet, in the rented car and headed east on route 319. It begins on the
west coast of the Florida Panhandle and travels north and east to Bartow,
Georgia (now that town is another story). The road through Florida
reminded us of the trip down the rivers -- not much to see except the route
stretching ahead and bordered by trees. We went through 50 miles of
state and national forest. Just as on the rivers, there was not much
traffic and we made good time. Soon we were crossing route 75 and were in
the familiar territory of Tifton, Ocilla, and finally Fitzgerald, Georgia.
We greeted Aunt Frances and 
Cousin Coota (whose real name is also Frances),
unpacked the car, and joined the congregation at the Central United Methodist Church for their
traditional Wednesday night supper and  gathering. The speaker that night
was a minister who had spent several years in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where
there are still missionaries bringing the Christian gospel to those inhabitants
who wish to convert. Although he did not go into details about the current
problems in those countries, he did mention some of the difficulties the
missionaries encounter.
Fitzgerald is an unique town. While
Georgia can trace its roots to early colonial days (it was also the fourth
state to ratify the Constitution), and the western portions of the state
were surveyed and settled during the first half of the 19th century, the
town of Fitzgerald was settled in 1895 by ex-Union soldiers and other
people from the Midwest. The founder, Philander H. Fitzgerald of
Indianapolis, Indiana, had searched for farm land where Northern veterans
of the Civil War could relocate out of the cold winters and summer
droughts of the Midwest. Governor W. J. Northern of Georgia was
interested in promoting his state, and he was supportive  of establishing
this "colony." Shares were sold including tracts for residences
and businesses within town and farm lands outside of town.
Aunt Frances' grandfather, an accountant from Nebraska, bought a town
tract and brought his wife, son, and daughter to Fitzgerald in 1895.
They built a house on their tract on West Lemon Street.
The town was an exact square of 1000 acres. Main
Street which runs north and south and Central Avenue which runs east and west
divide the town into four wards. These streets have parks down the middle
and other areas in each ward were set aside for parks, schools, and public
buildings. The seven streets north of Central Avenue are named for Georgia
rivers, and those south of Central Avenue are named for Southern trees and
shrubs. One of the  historians speculated that the original settlers
expected to see more "southern" trees in Georgia and named two of
their streets Orange and Lemon. The streets east of Main Street are named
in honor of Northern generals and those west of Main Street are named for
Confederate generals. The four streets that form the boundary are named
for battleships of the Civil War -- Sultana, Merrimac, Roanoke, and
Monitor. Perhaps because horses and wagons rather than cars drove the
early streets of Fitzgerald, all houses fronted on the streets and had an alley
access in the back to house the barns.
We thought it was longevity to live in our house in Amityville for 40 years, but
Aunt Frances and her family have lived here for over 100 years. There are
houses that have passed through many families, and there are houses that have
belonged in the same family for all those years. Aunt Frances' father, a
pharmacist from Quitman, Georgia, met the young lady who had come from Nebraska
in a covered wagon, married her, moved into and expanded the home on South Lee
Street. He owned the Rexall Drug Store in Fitzgerald and was known by all
for the rest of his life as Doctor Denmark. Many years latter his great-grandson married a girl
he met in Fitzgerald and they have restored one of the early houses down the street.
Several of the homes have been converted to businesses -- bed and breakfast,
long term care, doctors' offices, etc. Fitzgerald is a wonderful small town in
South Georgia that still has one foot in the Nineteenth Century while the other
is edging into the Twenty-first.
Monday, September 14, we load the rented car, say goodbye to Fitzgerald and reluctantly
head south back to Kibon and the Loop. A few hours later, as we were
about to meet up with the Gulf again, a wall of rain arrived. The storm that
became a nor'easter that pounded the east coast for the next several days,
started here in Apalachicola. It finally stopped raining Tuesday night, but wind
and waves kept us in port through Wednesday. Great, a chance to really do Apalachicola
and find out why this part of Florida is call The Forgotten Coast.
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for The Forgotten Coast... Apalachicola to
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Cruisin' The Loop Aboard Kibon