Zora Neale Hurston's Final Decade

6. A Crisis in Dixie: Eau Gallie, 1954–1956

130 6 A crisis in dixie Eau Gallie, 1954–1956 The whole matter revolves around the self respect of my people. How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near them? When the McCollum trial ended in late December 1952, Zora returned to her Eau Gallie farm and pondered her own fate. Just a few weeks shy of sixty-two, she was facing her golden years without the benefit of savings, investments, or dependable income. Her literary powers had dimmed with age and illness, and she was at odds with a racist and gender-biased publishing industry. She wrote constantly but published little and suffered from frequent bouts of gastric disorders and a hypertensive heart. Unsuccessful in her attempt to buy her Eau Gallie home, she scrambled to find the money “to grab a fine piece of property for almost nothing” located nearby.1 The property’s owner, Thomas R. Barr, gave her until March 9, 1952, to come up with a $1,100 down payment on the eight-acre tract, which was uncleared but close to a highway. Still counting on the $800 she had been promised by the Pittsburgh Courier, she wrote her friend and former husband Herbert Sheen, now a Los Angeles physician, to ask him to loan her the rest: “You know very well that I would not ask this favor of you if things were not terribly pressing. I can see something really big coming from this land deal.”2 Not surprisingly, at least two well-established real estate companies shared her vision. The Harris-Van Bergen Group and the Gleason family’s development firm were each champing at the bit, eager to make an offer if Hurston’s A Crisis in Dixie: Eau Gallie, 1954–1956 … 131 deal fell through.3 It was common knowledge that Eau Gallie and the neighboring city of Melbourne, which had been sleepy isolated areas for decades, were in the midst of a major economic transformation . Their close proximity to Patrick Air Force Base had resulted in a higher demand for housing and commercial development, turning available land in those areas into a hot commodity. An enthusiastic Hurston told Sheen, “One Yankee, Leveridge, has built (where there was nothing but weeds) about 600 new, modern houses (Leveridge Heights) and the new folks are taking the old settlers just like Grant took Richmond.”4 Thomas Barr and his employer, Van Werley Land Development, Inc., were pushing Hurston to use the tract for a cheap Negro development , but she had other plans. Her intentions were to turn five acres into a commercial orange grove, lease two acres for a white trailer park, and use the rest for her home site. Given the success of Florida’s citrus industry and the arrival of Cape Canaveral (Kennedy Space Center) in nearby Satellite Beach in the late 1950s, had Hurston been able to follow through on her plans, her life would have taken a decidedly different course. However, when the Courier failed to pay her the remaining $800 they owed her, she not only lost out on the land deal, she lost her car as well. Consequently, instead of reaping the benefits of a savvy investment, she spent the next few years working on her King Herod story, growing her own food, and scraping by on the money she earned from speaking engagements. She also earned a little income from her contribution to Huie’s book and a short stint as a ghostwriter for a local white man. In May, she granted an interview to reporter Leo Schumaker that appeared in the August 8, 1953, issue of All-Florida Magazine. The brief article, “Zora Hurston Sees King Herod Play As Her Greatest Work,” included a photo of a slimmed-down, smiling, and confident Hurston wearing a black-and-white fitted dress. Schumaker praised her for her “infectious laughter” and “brilliant mind,” which he characterized as “keenly alert to the fast moving events of today’s world.” On December 14, 1953, Hurston was saddened to learn that Florida ’s literary legend, 57-year-old Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, had died 132 … Zora Neale Hurston’s Final Decade of a stroke. The two writers had been friends since the summer of 1942 when they were both living in St. Augustine, Florida. While completing her autobiography, Zora had taken a summer teaching position...