Few people today
can claim a living memory of Florida's frontier Everglades. Glen Simmons,
who has hunted alligators, camped on hammock-covered islands, and poled
his skiff through the mangrove swamps of the glades since the 1920s, is
one who can. Together with Laura Ogden, he tells the story of backcountry
life in the southern Everglades from his youth until the establishment
of the Everglades National Park in 1947.
During the economic
bust of the late ‘20s, when many natives turned to the land to survive,
Simmons began accompanying older local men into Everglades backcountry,
the inhospitable prairie of soft muck and mosquitoes, of outlaws and moonshiners,
that rings the southern part of the state. As Simmons recalls life in
this community with humor and nostalgia, he also documents the forgotten
lifestyles of south Florida gladesmen.
By necessity,
they understood the natural features of the Everglades ecosystem. They
observed the seasonal fluctuations of wildlife, fire, and water levels.
Their knowledge of the mostly unmapped labyrinth of grassy water enabled
them to serve as guides for visiting naturalists and scientists. Simmons
reconstructs this world, providing not only fascinating stories of individual
personalities, places, and events, but an account that is accurate, both
scientifically and historically, of one of the least known and longest
surviving portions of the American frontier.
Glen Simmons
has lived in the south Florida Everglades since his birth in 1916 in Homestead.
In 1995 he was awarded a State of Florida Heritage Award for his unique
contribution to Florida's history and folk culture. He has demonstrated
and taught glades skiff building for the Florida Department of State,
Bureau of Folklife, and the South Florida Historical Society; his boats
are on permanent display at the Florida Folklife Museum in White Springs,
Florida, and at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Miami.
Laura Ogden,
also born in Homestead and a life-long friend of Glen Simmons, is consulting
anthropologist for the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida.
She has worked for the State of Florida Bureau of Folklife and has written
about traditional Florida folk culture; she also has published articles
in both anthropology and history journals.
224 pp. 5 3/4
X 8 1/2. 54 b&w photos, 1 drawing, 1 map.
ISBN 0-8130-1573-1
Cloth, $24.95
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