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ORANGE FRITTERS AND A STORY
36" X 54" Oil Painting
Video
Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at Cross Creek, 1935.
One of the nation's most famous writers was a transplant from
Rochester, New York who came to Florida in 1928 and purchased
a small country home and orange grove at Cross Creek between
Ocala and Gainesville. Rawlings discovered the charm of the local
country people and their trials and adventures in the backwoods
of Florida, writing of them in her moving stories. Her Pulitzer
Prize winning novel, "The Yearling", established Rawlings as an
important American writer and brought "Cracker Florida" to the
world.
In this portrayal, Marjorie's dog "Moe" follows along, sensing the
delicious aroma from the basket of warm orange fritters, and is
oblivious to a family of mallard ducks scurrying into the wild
water hyssop, thoroughwort and bitterweed.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings continued to live at her grove house at
Cross Creek and to write. She married her long time friend, Norton
Baskin in 1941. Her health became a concern when she was involved
in a five-year lawsuit with an individual who felt defamed regarding
an uncomplimentary portrayal in the novel "Cross Creek". After moving
to St. Augustine with Norton, she became ill and died in 1953 at age
57. Rawlings lays at rest in a small country cemetery near Cross Creek
in the peace and wild beauty of the rural Florida that she loved.
Today, visitors can still find her small house very much as it was
when she lived and worked there.
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