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Letters… We get letters…

As David Letterman used to say (and he may still: I haven’t been up that late in a looonng time...) LETTERS! WE GET LETTERS....

Cracker Cat got this in the email yesterday and I am delighted to share it with you all. It is from Reverend Raymond P Wilkins.

“I find the name of your discussion group very interesting, and wonder if you ever really knew a Florida “Cracker” or a person who lived the life of a Florida Cracker. I was raised on our family homestead in the far Northern reaches of Bay County, an area near Pine Log forest was the area where we made our home. We were pulpwooders and everyone in my Dads family did the same. We lived in actual “Cracker houses” all built by hand and all looked similar, true to the Cracker architecture. My Uncle Coon lived 1/2 mile from us and my Uncle Alton lived just about 1 mile from our house. If you are familiar with the term “Cracker” you can identify the life that a family lived in those times. It was a very primitive lifestyle because we couldn’t just run to the store to purchase what we needed. We looked forward to the Monday visits by the rolling store that came by our house.We lived there until I was about 5 years old, at that time just as many people from our area did we moved to Panama City where my dad landed a job working at the Wainwright shipyard building warships during the height of World War II. So many many people were needed at the shipyard and the pay was very attractive that folks left their homes and moved closer to the shipyard, the shipyard furnished us housing not far from where they all worked, many of the local people looked down on the workers from the rural areas and called us “hicks” and “bumpkins” and actually used the word “Crackers” to identify the workers. But the life of hard work and good work habits taught by this lifestyle was perfect for the people who built the warships that came out of Bay County. Many of the people stayed in the Panama City area after the war but my family went back to our original home.place. I’m sorry to bore you with this rambling but thought you might enjoy knowing what Cracker lifestyle was all about. I’m sure that if a person researched the Bay County archives there would be mention of what I wrote about. After all this was a big part of Bay County history.”

As you all have read here, my mother’s mother’s people are from Alachua County. When I have gone back and researched them in the US Census’ dating back into the 1800s, I find that they followed the true Cracker pattern of living some on either side of the Georgia Florida lineduring the first half of the 1800s and ‘my’ branch settling more permanently in Alachua in the late 1800s, possible due to land and labor becoming less plentiful as well as the railroad through High Springs being a stable source of income for many of the family.

Here is a link back to some discussion of the reason I call my blog Cracker Cat. The term ‘cracker cat’ also denotes a source of energy! Some of that ‘speaking the Positive into existence’ philosophy!

Reverend Wilkins, thanks for writing; please - Come back soon-bring your friends!

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Posted on Oct 02, 2007 - 10:20 AM by Jeannie Weller
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About Me

I was born into the middle of The Strip in 1960s Atlanta, Georgia. I was educated in Fayetteville, Georgia and at Georgia Southern College (now University) in Statesboro. I moved with my family to Panama City, Florida in 1999. My two daughters and I have enjoyed exploring the beaches, the Downtown Library, and all of our neighbors' attics and cupboards. I think writing is like pulling teeth but I can't do anything else, and that... not too well. I love looking at pictures and especially old ones, so if you have any, send me a COPY and tell me about it and I'll share it with my readers. Tell everyone you know about this blog, and ya'll come back now, hear?

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