Emily and Jack
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My
friendship with Emily goes back to 1963
when we were neighbors in Key West.
She
is a micro-biologist and an artist. She has retired from a long career
in charge of the dairy labs of the State of Tennessee.
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Over the years, Emily vacationed in her condo on the Florida Panhandle,
near Panama City.
After she retired, she moved there permanently
and bought a house on the water.
While there, she met Jack again,
whom she had known in Nashville, many years earlier
before her first marriage. They were married in 1996.
We hope to meet him one of these days!
Before retiring to Florida, Jack was in the furnishings business.
He is now a real estate agent.
Florida "Panhandle"
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Check out their website for your vacation rental on the beach!
Click here
or Telephone Toll Free: (888) 234-1404
Here is their home, also near the Gulf of Mexico,
and Emily's pond garden in their yard there.
Thankfully, everything survived the hurricanes of 2004!
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I
have not seen Emily since the 1970s.
Thanks to e-mail we are in regular contact these days.
It's hard to believe we go back over 40 years!
But, each time we meet, it's feels like we just saw each other yesterday.
We just pick up where we left off.
In
addition to sharing a love of painting and almost anything artistic,
Emily shares the Gardening Bug with me.
What a riot we had, planting in solid coral,
on an island off the coast of Key West!
Beach living left its mark for
sure though!
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Emily is a "Red Hat Lady."
That's a civic group for lively women:
"The
Red Hat Society, where there is fun after fifty
(and before) for women of all walks of life.
We believe silliness is the comedy relief of life and,
since we are all in it together, we might as well join red-gloved hands
and go for the gusto together."
(from their web site)
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Official Web Site - Red Hat Ladies
Click here
Emily
is very active in the Garden Club
and also creates floral arrangements for local events.
Below she is shown having received an award for floral
design.
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She
recently started taking a course in antiques.
and
she is on the Board of the newest Florida State Park.
This is 183 acres that has a history from Indian mounds on the property
and
a family lodge built in 1932 by the Hickes family, at a cost of $75,00....
quite a lot for 1932.
It was obtained by Florida in 1996 as a State Park and is the only St
Park to be
in partnership with a state college (Gulf Coast Community College)
Emily writes: " The Garden Club, of which I am a member,
has renovated the courtyard garden next to the 'big house.'
We had a 1935 picture to go by. It has been lots of fun . "
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The park is bordered on three sides by the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Powell-
one of the largest coastal dune lakes in Florida.
Coastal dune lakes are extremely rare worldwide;
in the United States they occur only along the Gulf Coast.
Prehistoric middens and mounds indicate that
humans lived in the area more than 4,000 years ago.
Natural areas range from coastal dunes and salt marshes along the Gulf
to freshwater wetlands and sand pine scrub along the lake.
Activities include swimming, beachcombing, nature study,
hiking, and both freshwater and saltwater fishing.
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"What's
a midden?" you ask!
A thousand years ago prehistoric hunters and gatherers—American Indians of unknown tribal affiliation - inhabited the area. They were semi-nomadic people who lived in small bands much of the year. They moved from camp to camp across the landscape as the seasons waxed and waned and as the rains came or came not. In the spring they gathered basketloads of wild onions and other small flowering plant bulbs and baked these in large rock-lined earth ovens built within shallow pits. The rocks they used for cooking broke apart after several heatings and were tossed out from the pit, forming donut-shaped mounded accumulations known to archeologists as burned rock middens. Researchers explore these ancient campsites to learn more about what it was that drew prehistoric peoples to the area. |
Official Web site - Camp Helen State
Park
Click
here
Island living has also carried down to the next generation!
Emily's daughter Heather and her husband Cliff live on
the island of St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands.
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St. Kitts July 2005
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Heather
is a graphic artist. Cliff
is a lawyer with the FBI.
Their first child, Carl, was born last July.
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Saint Croix
To be able to click on the locations on the map,
for more info and photos,
Click here
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For videos and information about
Saint Croix and the Virgin Islands,
Click here
Heather has started her own business, "Assail Marketing."
To see an example of her work,
Click here
Jack has a daughter and two grandsons, ages 2 and 5.
Hoping to receive their photos one of these days.
His daughter also has her own business,
"Bytes of Knowledge," for web design.
Click here
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