The intoxicating aroma of orange blossoms wafts through screened porch windows, where a 1930s-era Remington typewriter and a vase of freshly plucked flowers rests atop a cypress table. Here, perched in a deer-hide chair, author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings found herself surrounded by the north-central Florida wilderness she poignantly portrayed in her letters and acclaimed literary works, such as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling, and a memoir named for the place that so inspired her: Cross Creek.
Overwhelmed by the bustle of 1920s Rochester, New York, Marjorie and her first husband, Charles, aimed to swap city life for a quiet farming routine in this Florida hamlet. They purchased a generous plot of land, which included 1,600 orange trees, and hoped to turn enough revenue from their citrus harvests to support…
