Zora Neale Hurston, Jan. 7, 1891 – Jan. 28, 1960

A half century ago this week, a former maid who’d dabbled in writing was buried in a Fort Pierce pauper’s grave.

It’s only in the past few decades that Zora Neale Hurston earned the adulation she never got in life.

Hurston wrote with passion and poetry and humor about the joys and turmoils of blacks living and dying far beyond the main roads of central and south Florida.

“Miss Zora’’ rose to prominence, was gradually ostracized by her own people and died destitute in Fort Pierce, only to be reborn only as an artist can be — through her work.

She was raised in Eatonville, north of Orlando. It was America’s first all-black town when it was founded in 1887.

Her mother once said, “You jump at de sun.”

Her mother died and her father, a tenant farmer and pastor, handed her off to relatives. She was a maid, graduated high school, and went to Howard University in Washington.

She was 30 when she wrote her first story in 1921 but lied about her age by a decade, making her an undeserving prodigy. She moved to New York in 1925 and was swept up in the Harlem Renaissance.

Her career climaxed with 1937’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, a swirling trail of a woman’s journey to independence that climaxes with the Glades’ great 1928 hurricane.

But fame didn’t always translate to fortune; she never made $1,000 on a book and once was a secretary to novelist Fanny Hurst.

Two marriages failed.

Peers accused her of Uncle Tomism after she became a political conservative, decrying integration.

Her last novel, Seraph on the Suwannee, was published in 1948.

She was a maid, a substitute teacher, and a columnist for the black weekly Fort Pierce Chronicle.

She died broke in a Fort Pierce nursing home in 1960. Friends donated for her funeral.

In 1973, Alice Walker (The Color Purple) paid for a marker for her grave.

Eatonville’s Zora Neale Hurston Center was opened in 1987, a monument to the woman who prophesied: “When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world.’’

Special thanks to Post staff writer Scott Eyman.

The gravesite of Zora Neale Hurston at the Garden of Heavenly Rest Cemetery in Fort Pierce has a marker paid for by author Alice Walker. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

Tags: African Americans, Black history month, celebrities

A pirate looks at 63: Jimmy Buffett’s birthday is Dec. 25

By Michelle Quigley

Jimmy Buffett turns 63 on Christmas Day. That’s a pretty long way from 40, but to some of us, it seems like only yesterday that we heard Come Monday for the first time.

This 1974 Miami News story describes Buffett as  “one locally based performer who has really taken off professionally of late.” There’s a photo of Buffett  on stage at the August 1973 Dolphin Project benefit concert at the Coconut Grove Playhouse with folk singer Bobby Ingram, Danny Finley (lead guitarist for The Texas Jewboys), Rick Danko of The Band, folk singer Eric Anderson, and singer-songwriter Fred (”Everybody’s Talkin’”) Neil.

Above and below, August 1975 Miami News file photos from a Key West concert.

Above, Buffett opened his Coconut Telegraph tour at the Sunrise Musical Theater on February 5, 1981. Palm Beach Post file photo.

Buffett (right, in photo above, and autographing a record, below) stopped to spend a few days in Fort Pierce in 1980, sailing in the Indian River and hanging out with locals. Palm Beach Post file photos.

Above, in 1981 Buffett brought his Save the Manatee committee to West Palm Beach to plan a public-awareness campaign. Palm Beach Post file photo.

We invite you to share your Parrothead memories in the comments below, and upload your pictures to our photo gallery. (See photos that other readers have shared here.)

Tags: celebrities

Did YOU make history?

Check out the dust-jacket of Palm Beach County’s official centennial scrapbook. (Click the image to see a larger version.)

Here’s a list of who’s who on the cover, and keep reading below to see a list of some of the hundreds of Palm Beach Post readers whose photos and memories are included in Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home. Click here to order your copy of the book.

Front cover, clockwise from top left:

Cornelia Anthony (her father ran the Anthony’s store) and her cousin Mary Anthony in West Palm Beach, late 1920s

The Breakers hotel

Vintage airplane, from a 1932 Palm Beach Life cover

President Kennedy, Jackie and Caroline in Palm Beach, 1963

Restored 1916 Courthouse, now home to the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum
Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, 1940s

Bathing beauties in Palm Beach, 1959: (from left) Mildred Smith Gruner, Patsy Hughes, Marsha DeSorro, Brenda Godwin, Nancy Ellis

Ethel Sterling Williams, Delray Beach pioneer

First schoolhouse for black students in West Palm Beach: Built at Tamarind Avenue and Datura Street in 1896

Kay and John Rybovich with sailfish at Inlet Dock in Palm Beach

Twins Greg (left) and John Rice fishing off Southern Boulevard, West Palm Beach, in 1960

Burt Reynolds, Palm Beach High School Class of 1954

Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, oldest existing structure in Palm Beach County, built in 1860

Back cover, clockwise from top left:

Baby great egret in the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, west of Boynton Beach

Ramon Blackburn (left) and his twin brother Royce water-ski on Lake Osborne, in central Palm Beach County, 1950

Ella Carver of Jupiter enjoys her ice cream at the 2007 SunFest in West Palm Beach

Horses graze at Palm Beach Point in Wellington, home to some of the world’s premier equestrian facilities

Miss Roosevelt High 1963, Gloria Fretwell (center), with her attendants Ramona Jenkins and Carolyn Harrington

Sundy House in Delray Beach, painted by Brennan M. King

Bill Watson, who grew up in Juno Beach, 1950s

Lincoln C. Holmes’ sailing party, 1903: Holmes was a pioneer boat-builder in West Palm Beach

Horse show: Georgina Bloomberg rides Mila during the $100,000 National Horse Show Grand Prix at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club, 2007

Flier for the West Palm Beach Fishing Club

Two women at the Boynton Inlet: Gustine and Mae Geibel, late 1920s

Mishi, Rokuo and Masa Kamiya; Yamato Colony, 1915

Miss West Palm Beach, Carolyn Stroupe Stambaugh, 1955

Mar-a-Lago, now owned by Donald J. Trump

Majorette Billie Jo McFee Swilley of Delray Beach, 1950s

1927 issue of Palm Beach Life magazine, founded in 1906

Jackie Kennedy waves goodbye at Palm Beach International Airport on her way to Washington for her husband’s inauguration, 1961

Did you make history? Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home features photos and memories from hundreds of Palm Beach Post readers. Is your name listed here?

Armando Acosta family
Sherman Adler
Anthony family
Sue Van Dyke Bailey
Pat Baldwin
Diane Benedetto
Robert Bertische
Nancy Blaschke
Dudley Blossom III
Jerry Browning
Bowman family
Sam Budnyk
Burkhardt family
Rosanne Bush family
Walt Bylciw
Jane Ann Hadley Caruso
Savana Cary
Jeannette Buss Cearley
Cory J. Ciklin
Patricia Ferner Cobb
Collie family
Robert Corbitt
Jim “Jim Bob” Crabtree
Linda Cullen
T.J. Cunningham family
Cushman family
Bob and Babe Davidoff
Gillian Wimbourne Davis
Sue Day
Thomas Delbeck
Michael Dubiner
Dubois family
Duda family
Honey Duncan
Eckler family
Edward M. Eissey
Scott Eller
Erickson family
Fanjul family
Joe Farish
Katherine Fay
Mickey Foster
Mike Geibel family
Sherri Gilbert
Frank Gillette
Bert Gilmore family
Dr. Murray Gordon
M.E. Gruber family
Gunster law firm
Lauren Hand family
Linda Juretie Hess
Raleigh Hill
Robert Hill
Lincoln Holmes family
Robert Holt
Ray Howard
Ineria Hudnell
Barbara Starkey Hubbard
Carynn Jackson
Gladys Kimbro Smith Jenkins
Jeff Johansen
William E. Johnson
Harry Johnston Jr.
Don Jorden
Roxane F. Karr
Ed and Bob Kassatly
Bill Keeton
Kennedy family
Sharon Koskoff
Mark Lee
Art Leibovit
Curtis Lewis
Florence Lindros family
Lauren Llacera
Mary Lopez
Dr. Catherine Lowe
Kenny Lyman family
Lake Lytal family
Karen Tulino Marcus
Jack McDermott
Zenetta Ward Miller
William Glenn Mize
Kitty Carr Mollenberg
Alice Moore
Jacqueline Morrison
Marvin Mounts family
Martin E. Murphy family
Penny Greenberg Murphy
Mo Mustaine
Nancy Myers family
Chris Noel
Pat Watkins North
Sandy Oakley
Mary Diana Obst
Ginger Pedersen
Karen and Ileana Pentzke
Rebecca Frazier Peterson
Ruth Pompey
James Ponce
Raborn family
John and Joyce Raymond
Colin Raynor
Greg Rice
Michael “Corky” Roche
Judge Edward Rodgers
Kay Rybovich
Fred “Deadeye” Salmon
Lorraine P. Saunders
Alexandra “Sandy” Scavnicky
Shirley and George Schneider
Robert Shalhoub
Penny and Wally Sheltz
Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
Ernest G. Simon
Mark and Robert Simpson
Carolyn Stroupe Stambaugh
Fritz Stein family
Roderick Stevens
Cynthia L. Stowe
Billie Jo McFee Swilley
Ruel P. Tafalla
Dr. Warren P. Tatoul
C. Pfeiffer Trowbridge
Tuppen family
Tami Valentine
Bill Wallace
Bill Watson
Wedgworth family
Elsie Clough Weeks
Greg and Rebecca Weiss
C. Deborah Welch
J.B. Wilson
Horace and Dorothy Wilson
Dorothy McDonald Wilson
Ted Winsberg
Eileen Dalton Wozneski

As always, we invite you to share your own stories and memories of Palm Beach County and Florida in the Your History section of historicpalmbeach.com

Tags: celebrities, schools, store

Diary of a College Beauty: UF’s first homecoming queen shares her memories of Palm Beach County

It’s good to be queen.

Even if that shining moment happened 56 years ago.

Carolyn Stroupe was a junior in 1953 when she became the University of Florida’s first homecoming queen.

The Palm Beach High graduate soon earned another “first” : She and fellow model Beverly Bentley became the first models on a new TV game show, The Price is Right. Their signature moves — gracefully and elegantly running their hands over the merchandise — have inspired every show hostess ever since.

Carolyn made $12,000-a-year for those poetic moves, and she earned it, since this was live TV.

“The stagehands would, for example, roll out a stove on a dolly and they’d walk away,” she remembered. “You’d go to show it and sometimes the merchandise would fall down cockeyed and you’d still have to go on showing it as if nothing happened. The audience loved that.”

In the 50s Stroupe was the college ideal. She was featured on Parade magazine (above) , and in 1955 Look magazine ran a feature on her titles ‘Diary of a College Beauty.’

Carolyn Stroupe Stambaugh’s memories are part of the new book Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home.

After years of modeling in New York, Carolyn came home to West Palm Beach, married eye doctor Reginald Stambaugh and raised a family.

“Today our four children are fifth-generation Palm Beach County natives and some of our grandchildren are of the sixth generation,” Stambaugh says. “They, too, are blessed to live in the tropical paradise which Reggie and I have loved.”

‘‘After learning how to model in fashion shows, I was introduced to “Miss Martha” and her daughter,“Miss Lynn”, of the prestigious Martha’s shop on Worth Avenue. They were the first of several Worth Avenue stores that hired me to show their clothes at the luncheons on Wednesdays at the Everglades Club. Miss Anderson, the dean of women at Palm Beach High, and Mrs. Love, my journalism teacher, allowed me to miss class in order to model. I also modeled in several Palm Beach hotels, including the Whitehall Hotel, a hotel that had been built onto the Flagler Museum. That work helped me pay for college.”

‘I got a 2-cent postcard sent to me from California (above). The only address was a pasted photo of me and the words “West Palm Beach.” To show you what a small town West Palm was at that time — I received the card, no problem.’

‘The first air-conditioned building I remember was Burdines department store on Clematis Street. I was in high school then, and I remember walking in the front door and just standing there to cool off. Burdines was a novelty in more than one way: It also had the first escalator in town!’

Tags: celebrities, schools

Big Names Drew Impressive Crowds

Readers: In honor of Black History Month, we’re revisiting local people or places that have made historical contributions.

The Sunset, built in 1925 at Eighth and Henrietta streets in West Palm Beach, drew the greatest of the musical greats — Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles.

It also drew as many as 1,000 people a night, both black and white.

On Saturdays, neon lights atop the two-story, 14,000-square-foot building shone in the crisp air of a South Florida winter’s night.

On the street, men in tuxedos and women in shining white full-length gowns stepped from idling black limousines.

They mingled with day workers who’d walked from home or parked late-model sedans blocks away.
Many of the maids and chauffeurs who worked in Palm Beach would come. At times, they’d mention to their employers that some big performer was playing on the mainland, and the limos would soon be crossing the bridge.

The Sunset’s second-floor auditorium possibly was the largest dance hall of any black club in Florida.
Huge flowers, rising almost to the balcony, adorned tables. Other tables lined the balcony and looked down onto the dance floor.

“They filled the place. It was elbow to elbow,” Thelma Starks, then 89, said in 2006. Her husband, Dennis Starks, owned the place in its heyday.

Patrons dressed appropriately. Decent clothes for downstairs, a jacket for upstairs. Swearing was not tolerated.

White or black, rich or otherwise, if someone acted up, Starks refunded his money and said he was welcome when he was worthy.

Next week: Times change.

Photo courtesy of THELMA STARKS:The main dance floor at The Sunset was often elbow-to-elbow as up to 1,000 people, both white and black, came to the club where musical greats like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles played. Patrons needed to be dressed well and be on their best behavior to be welcome at the West Palm Beach club. Swearing or other bad conduct would bring a refund and an ejection from Dennis Starks, who owned The Sunset during its heyday.

Tags: African Americans, Black history month, celebrities