Mickey Starling
reporter3@greenepublishing.com
Currently, winter dips its chilling finger into North Florida for an occasional visit and we barely notice the effects of it before it's time to put away our sweaters for the year. Modern technology has done a lot to make dealing with the colder months much easier.
Such was not the case less than a century ago, when there was no central heating or satellite weather forecasting. Brutally cold temperatures are not the norm in our area and when they made their first yearly appearance in the past, folks were usually caught off guard. According to E.B. Browning's book, The Florida Scene, the onset of chilly temperatures would appear as a thief in the night, send people scurrying about, airing out their quilts and blankets and heading to the country to find firewood. The wood of choice for easy lighting was light pine and this would be coupled with oak wood that burned longer.
The men who did the chopping knew to bring plenty of wood back because most homes had no insulation and relied on fireplaces for warmth. It also was not uncommon for some houses to have cracks or spaces in their walls that allowed cold air to intrude at will.
One of the greatest concerns during the winter months was the possibility of sickness. Various viruses typically gain strength in cold weather and that meant easily spreading sickness as families were often cramped into close quarters to keep warm. Some mothers have been known to put their children all in one room when a virus hit the family so they would all contract the illness and get over it together. This served to speed up the process and get everyone back to normal sooner. There was a flu epidemic that covered the globe in 1918 that killed 675,000 people in America. Jacksonville was one of the harder hit areas in North Florida, where more than 400 people died in October of 1918.
If sickness didn't find its way to your door, the cold temperatures would make daily chores pretty miserable. One never knew, when milking the family cow, that it could turn painful if the lactating bovine had a tail full of cockle burrs. These nasty little weeds are common to Florida pastures and their spiny burrs could inflict a great deal of pain when a well-placed swish of the tail struck a farmer's face on a frigid morning.
For all the troubles that winter ushered in, there were some delightfully enjoyable aspects to the season and none was more prominent than the harvesting of the sweet potato. Nothing provided a better night's sleep than a day spent digging up this sweet treasure from the earth. Sweet potatoes were a treasured commodity that families could easily store for long periods of time by burying them under their homes or by wrapping them in quilts and storing them under their beds. These simple storage methods helped the potatoes remain fresh until the coming of summer.
It is doubtful that many sweet potatoes made it to see the warmth of summer, especially if my father had anything to do with it. He considered them to be the preferred dish at any meal and he could just as easily enjoy one for dessert. He would bake them in the oven as often as possible and coat them down with butter and a healthy serving of brown sugar. Anyone not sharing his enthusiasm for the sweet potato was considered to be of questionable taste or mental instability.
Sitting around a warm campfire is one winter tradition from the past that continues to be a favorite evening activity. Parents in the old days were known to be strict disciplinarians, but many of them took on a child-like wonder when gathered near the glowing embers of an evening blaze. Even indoors, families could be pretty noisy in the midst of conversation and laughter and children often had to learn to sleep in the middle of it all. Of course, if they spent the day digging up sweet potatoes, that was no problem.
Special thanks to the Treasures of Madison County Museum for providing the research material for this article.