History lovers can find plenty to inspire gratitude
November, my friends, has a lot going for it. Besides being Native American Heritage Month, Manatee Awareness Month and a bunch more, the month that’s home to Thanksgiving is a great time to be thankful. So it’s no surprise that the folks at the National Day Calendar website have proclaimed it National Gratitude Month. Here are just a few of the goings-on, people, and places that spark a Central Florida history-lover’s gratitude this year.
The gift of books
This November marks a century since Capt. Charles L. Albertson, a retired New York City police inspector who wintered in Orlando, donated his personal library to the city in 1921, on the condition that it build a library to house them. Albertson’s books joined the volumes collected by Sorosis Woman’s Club to form the foundation for Orlando’s first city-owned public library.
Born in 1856, Albertson moved in 1879 from a farm in Windsor, New York, to New York City, where he joined the police force. He retired in 1905 and came to Orlando in 1913. An avid reader, he brought all 12,000 of his books with him.
Named in his honor, the Albertson Public Library opened in November 1923 on the northwest corner of Central Boulevard and Rosalind Avenue, where the original section of the Orlando Public Library now stands.
Sadly, because of the institutionalized segregation of the times, the Albertson’s doors were closed to Black patrons until the mid-1960s, but the vision of a library for Black residents was strong long before that, beginning with Jones High School teachers who created an unofficial library for the community.
Others shared the teachers’ vision, including leaders of the Black community and Olive Brumbach, founding director of the Albertson Library, and in June 1924, less than a year after the Albertson opened, its first branch library, named for Booker T. Washington, opened in the rectory of a church on Terry Avenue near West Church Street. The legacy of its first librarian, Mrs. Eddie Cromartie
Jackson, included these words: “A person cannot travel everywhere, meet people of all types, converse with men of all minds, unless he reads.”
Centennial celebrations of Albertson and his donations include an online tribute at the Orange County Library System’s website (ocls.info) and a special “Captain Albertson’s Ale,” produced by the Ivanhoe Park Brewing Company (and sold only at the company’s brewery, 1300 Alden Road, while supplies last). A portion of the proceeds benefit the Friends of the
Orange County Library System.
Speaking of books, pintsized “Little Free Library” cabinets seem to popping up all over the place, including the Thornton Park and Lake Eola Heights areas near downtown. Anyone can place books in their yard for passersby to take, at no charge, of course — but the collections labeled “Little Free Library” are linked to a nonprofit based in Hudson, Wisconsin, with a declared mission “to be a catalyst for building community, inspiring readers, and expanding book access for all” through
a global network of tiny, volunteer-led libraries. To learn more, visit littlefree library.org.
Green and growing
Lovers of history and Florida’s environment can be grateful that horticulturist Henry Nehrling’s historic home and gardens survive and thrive in Gotha, thanks to the support of dedicated volunteers and of past owners of the property, one of whom, Barbara Silvers Bochiardy, died in
September at 91.
In the early 1900s, Nehrling’s Gotha gardens was one of the first experimental U.S. Department of Agriculture horticultural stations in Florida, where Nehrling tested more than 3,000 plants. That’s just one of the fascinating aspects to the Nehrling story, which is well told at NehrlingGardens.org.
In 1981, Bochiardy and her husband, Howard, bought what was left of the original Nehrling property, including Nehrling’s 1880s house, and rescued the home and gardens, which had been vacant and vandalized for several years. Their contribution was invaluable. In 1999, the Henry Nehrling Society was organized “with the express mission of saving this important piece of Florida’s pioneer history,” as its website notes. Placed on the National Register of Historic Sites in 2000, it’s a Florida treasure.
‘I appreciate Winter Park’
You can hear those words, “I appreciate Winter Park,” and more, spoken by Robert Langford, founder of the vanished Langford Resort Hotel, in a sampling of an oral history with Langford that’s in the collection of the Winter Park History Museum (visit wphistory. org and click on “explore”). The museum recently unveiled a podcast titled “A Stroll Down Park Avenue,” available at wphistory. buzzsprout.com. The latest episode features longtime resident and community activist Ann Saurman, who describes her life growing up in Winter Park during World War II and reflections on Park Avenue in the 1940s through the 1960s.