Visiting Gainsville, FL

We visited our friends June and Norm who have lived in Gainsville for 30 years.  We met as undergraduates at the University of Illinois.  For years we exchanged Christmas cards and it was good to see them again.

By the First Lutheran Church

Norm is chair of the Board of Trustees and general contractor for the complete refurbishing of the church sanctuary and offices.  He will be done late this summer.

First Lutheran Church, Gainsville, FL

We went with them to the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of "The Yearling" which won prizes in the 1930's and then was made into a movie.  She had purchased a 70 acre orange grove at Cross Creek at a time when the neighbors were country folk.  

A view of the home and barn.

This place reminded us of the Sandberg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC, but in a much more modest form.  

The house with the porches to get "air" when temperatures are hot.

A necessary accessory.

Old cooker.

When the author was a boy, he helped his grandfather and others butcher hogs for family food.  The boy's job was to keep the fire underneath the pot going so as to cook internal organs for sausage making.  What fun for a seven year old!

A final salute to friends June and Norm.