Some photographs from Florida in the spring of 1961. The first set are from 3448 NW 11th Avenue, Arnie and Newlin's new house in Gainesville; the second set from Nursie Ashmore's house in Crawfordville at Easter.
In the first five Gainesville pictures, the family is in the living room. The next two are in the front yard of the house, where one can see the car port. Car ports were perhaps more common in Florida at that time. The numerous pine trees provided shade in the summer, keeping the air conditioning bill lower. Later they were a nuisance as they frequently lost branches in any wind or storm.
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| Andrew, six months old |
 | | Andrew, Allan (back of head) and Joel, spring 1961 |
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| Newlin, Andrew, Joel, and Allan, Gainesville, spring 1961 |
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| Joel, Newlin, Andrew, and Allan, spring 1961 |
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| Newlin, Andrew, Joel, and Allan, spring 1961 |
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| Joel with Ruffy |
| | Joel, Andrew and Allan with their dog Ruffy, spring 1961 |
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| Allan, Andrew, Newlin, and Joel Nevis, spring 1961 |
It looks like Newlin is wearing a birthday hat in the photo above, but I can think of no one's birthday in the spring, so perhaps this picture is from Mother's Day, May 14.
Easter (April 2) was spent at Newlin's mother's house in Crawfordville. She had a large grape trellis for her scuppernong grapes in the back. Allan and Joel did not like the grapes' pungent flavor but they did throw the fruit at each other in play. Newlin's brother Ludlow and his family (wife Clarisse, son Randan and daughter Jerri) joined them.  |
| Allan, Joel, Arnie, and Andrew, Crawfordville, Easter 1961 |
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| Allan and Joel, Easter 1951 |
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| Andrew, Newlin, Joel, Arnie, and Allan, Easter 1961 |
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| Clarisse, Randan, Ludlow, and Jerri Ashmore, Easter 1961 |
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| Allan, Easter 1961 |
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| Allan and Joel, Easter |
In the front of the house of the photo above, one can make out a semicircular flower bed where Nursie grew her favorite flower zinnias. On this trip, though, we had picked some azaleas from Arnie and Newlin's yard in Gainesville and discovered on the way that the flowers concealed several bees who emerged in the car. We had to open the window and chase them out. One bee managed to make the three hour drive and escape from the flowers inside Nursie's home.
Nursie, Newlin, and Eric in Crawfordville, Florida, 1961
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| Joel and Nursie, Crawfordville, 1961 |
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| Allan, Arnie, Joel Nevis, Nursie, Newlin, and Andrew, Easter 1961 |
In this last photo the three generations (Nursie Ashmore, daughter Newlin Ashmore Nevis and son-in-law Arnold Nevis, and grandsons Allan, Joel and Andrew Nevis) stand in front of Nursie's house in Crawfordville. It is a typical Florida house, built up off the ground to keep critters out and in most cases with a crawl space to allow air to circulate underneath and cool the structure. The style is dubbed a cracker house — a cracker is a native of Florida — and features a covered porch and fireplace, among other things.
Arnie managed to insult his brother-in-law Ludlow when he found out that Ludlow was born on the fourth of July, humorously calling him a cracker in reference to a firecracker set off on Independence Day; cracker is also used as a term for poor rural whites in Georgia and Florida, perhaps a notch below a redneck, so the joke did not go over well.
After Nursie got cancer, Ludlow and Newlin's brother Enwood took her into his house in Tallahassee with Newlin and her three sisters tending to Nursie's care. As appreciation, all the Ashmore siblings donated their shares of the house from Nursie's inheritance to Enwood. Enwood later rented the house to sister Sheryl's son-in-law Charles Barwick and he converted it into a restaurant (named Shay's for his youngest son). It burned down after a few years, about a decade after Nursie's death in 1963.
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first post in Flashbacks How the Nevis family came to California
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