Exploring Series Books in Florida, Part 2 - the Oldest City in the United States

We had so much fun exploring the Space Coast of Florida, searching for all of the locations that the Hardy Boys, the Happy Hollister, and Nancy Drew visited (Series Books - The Space Coast), that Pam and I could not wait to visit our next destination.  With so many series books that have had books set in Florida, we certainly had plenty from which to choose.  In this case, though, Hurricane Milton made the decision for us, since the West Coast of Florida has been drastically affected by the wind and rains.  Thus, looking to stay on the East Coast, we moved just a couple of counties north of the Space Coast, up to St. John County, Florida and the oldest city in the United States - St. Augustine!

 

In this instance, we were fortunate to only have one book to explore in this grand city, and that was The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms.  This book is the fourth book in "The Moving Picture Girls" series produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and published under the author name of Laura Lee Hope.  The series follows the adventures of two sisters, Ruth and Alice DeVere, and their father, Hosmer DeVere, all of whom work in the film industry (silent films, as this series was originally published from 1914 - 16).  In this particular volume, the girls travel to Florida with their father and the rest of the film troupe to make several more movies in St. Augustine, as well as in areas in the interior of the state.  It is those chapters where the film crew stays and films in St. Augustine on which Pam and I focused our attention...

 

In the story, Ruth and Alice, along with their father and the film troupe, stay at a hotel described as having a "ladies' court, with a palm-girded garden wherein a fountain played" (p. 63).  Upon arriving in St. Augustine, we discovered that the city boasts a hotel that accurately fits that description - the Alcazar Hotel!  Built by Henry Flagler, a railroad tycoon who was wanting to create a resort city in the South, the Alcazar officially opened in 1888 on Christmas Day.  The hotel remained opened until 1931, so it would have been opened in 1914, when this book was published.  The author likely visited the hotel at some point, or was intimately familiar with it, as the descriptions certainly fit the place.

 

 The "ladies' court" (p. 63), which was the inner courtyard where the girls "strolled out under the beautiful loggia, through an avenue of palms and many tropical plants" (pp. 66-67), has gone through changes over the years, but it still has the small bridge over the fountain of water, as well as the line of palm trees and tropical plants everywhere you turn.  Pam and I nearly felt like we had walked right into the pages of the story, joining Ruth and Alice as they took in the breathtaking beauty of the hotel.

 

Within walking distance of the hotel was Fort Marion (p. 66), located on the banks of the Mantanzas River (p. 68).  It was here that the players were to film a movie titled "The Spanish Prisoner" (p. 78), and according to the book, "the background of the old fort [was] most effective" (p. 78).  The book talks about "what was once the drawbridge in front of the portcullis, near the old watchtower on the stairway that was originally an inclined way, by which artillery was hauled up to the terre plein" (p. 78).  Like the acting troupe in the story, the fort was a moment in time preserved for all to see.

Due to the heavy rains from Hurricane Milton, the inside of the fort was, unfortunately, closed to visitors, so Pam and I were not able to go in and see the old guard room and the dungeon (p. 78), which Alice and Ruth explored when not filming scenes for their movie.  We did, however, take time to walk around the outside of the fort, taking in the moat, the watchtower, and the area where the drawbridge once existed.  Again, we were able to imagine what it must have been like for the film troupe as they filmed in and around the fort, as it certainly could be used as the backdrop for a period piece of drama!

 

 As we continued to explore St. Augustine and follow in the path of the Moving Picture Girls, our next stop was the Old City Gates. In the book, the girls "reached the north end of St. George street and before the old city gates..." (p. 67).  This description is spot-on, as the end of St. George Street is exactly where we found the Old City Gates, still standing after more than 280 years!

 

The book gave a very accurate description of the gates, which (as stated in the book) were built in 1743.  And, like the story says, there is a bronze tablet set in the masonry (p. 68) that is still embedded in the wall today - although it definitely shows its age!  Pam and I were fortunate enough to have a couple take a picture of us at the gate, and as you can see, they are not only pretty tall (way taller than me!), but also considerably thick - which they would need to be, if the walls were built to protect the city.

 

 

Now, there was one place in the book that provided a great description, but, unfortunately, no longer exists in the real world.  The Moving Picture Girls visit an orange grove, which is said to be just a short distance from the city gates (p. 70).  At one time, such an orange grove did exist just down the street from the gates - Dr. Gaernett's Orange Grove, which is likely the grove to which the author is referring - however, by the 1950s, the property had been sold, and, bit by bit, the grove disappeared as the city developed more and more.  Now, all we have to remember the grove are postcards of the past.

 

 

Being in St. Augustine, one would expect that the Moving Picture Girls would visit the famed Fountain of Youth - and, yes, they did!  The book indicates that the girls found the fountain "...on Myrtle Avenue, two block north of the orange grove..." (p. 73).  The distance is just a it off, but not by much.  The Fountain of Youth is located at the end of Myrtle Avenue, but the entrance is now off of the cross-street, Magnolia Avenue (Fountain of Youth).  I suppose, since this is a work of fiction, some liberties could be taken with distance and directions.

As the sign at the entrance to the park says, the Fountain of Youth represents the first chapter of our nation's colonial history - in 2,000 BC, the native Timucua town of Seloy thrives on the location; in 1513, Ponce de Leon landed at the location; in 1565, Menendez established the city of St. Augustine at the location; and in 1587, the First Mission Church of Nombre de Dios was built on the location.  Certainly, there have been countless changes to the park over the years, the fountain itself is still a major draw for tourists - so, just like the Moving Picture Girls, Pam and I had to check it out!

 

The book even goes so far as to describe how "near the fountain was a large coquina cross ..." (p. 75), which can still be viewed in the park today. As indicated in the book, the cross was actually found "by discovery of a silver casque, which contained documents telling of the matter ..." (p. 76).  When visiting the park, you can see the Coquina Cross, made up of 15 vertical and 13 horizontal stones that were allegedly placed there by Ponce de Leon to indicate his discovery of the fountain.  The park retains a copy of the silver container that was discovered in 1904, which contained papers that purported to be "an affidavit by a crown official to verify that [the] cross was made here by Ponce de Leon in the year 1513" (from the plaque located at the site of the cross and the silver casque inside the park).  Thus, the discovery of that cross and casque would have only taken place 10 years prior to the publication of this book!

 

 

Time escaped us faster than we anticipated as we explored the country's oldest city, and before we knew it, we had to leave.  This meant we did not have time to visit the Alligator Farm, where "[o]ne act in a play took place ... on Anastasia Island" (p. 94).  There is an actual Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, that is still open to the public today (Alligator Farm).  It is most certainly larger than it was back in 1914, and most likely more commercialized for tourists than at the turn of the previous century.  Nevertheless, tourists today can see live alligators just as Ruth and Alice did during the stay in St. Augustine.

 

The Moving Pictures Girls Under the Palms (1914), written under the pseudonym of Laura Lee Hope, offered up the most places to visit from any of the other books we explored during Pam's trip to Florida.  St. Augustine was an unexpected treasure trove of adventure for us - the Alcazar Hotel, the Fountain of Youth, Fort Marion, the Mantanzas River, the Old City Gates - it was truly like stepping back in time and stepping right into the pages of the book we had read.  

Although Pam had to head back home to Canada, it was not without hope.  Already, we were discussing our next adventure, because we were determined to get over to the west side of Florida and trace the path of a certain flight attendant who solved a mystery over there...

 

COMING SOON:  Exploring Series Books in Florida - Part 3 (Tampa Bay)!

The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms, or Lost in the WIlds of Florida (The Moving Picture Girls No. 4)

The Stratemeyer Syndicate published a number of series under the pen name of author "Laura Lee Hope," and the Moving Picture Girls is just one of them.  The series ran from 1914 to 1916, for a total of seven books.  Original published by Grosset & Dunlap, like so many other series back in the day, it was later reprinted by other publishers, including World Syndicate (which is the editions I have).  Although I have all seven books (in dust jacket, which I consider myself to be fortunate!), I decided to pick up this fourth book in the series, since it is set in Florida.  It has been fun to read all of these children's series books set in Florida and see just how many real references are used and how many fictional settings are created.  Unlike the Outdoor Girls' adventure in Florida, which was littered with one fictional place after another, this series actually utilized a number of actual locations.

The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms, or Lost in the Wilds of Florida tells the story of Ruth and Alice DeVere's adventures in the Sunshine State with the film company for whom they are employed, along with their father.  In the first chapter, the girls (and the rest of the acting troupe) learn from the company's manager, Frank Pertrell, that they will all be heading to Florida aboard a "steamer" to film their next dramas (p. 4).  Most everyone is excited about the prospect, and Ruth and Alice are even confident that the warm weather of Florida will help improve their father's health (which seems a bit familiar to part of the plot from The Outdoor Girls in Florida).  But right off the bat, things start to go wrong - first, one of the actors falls overboard from the ship, and then a fire in the lower decks forces all of the passengers to be ferried to another steamboat for the remainder of the journey to St. Augustine.

From the moment the troupe arrives in Florida, I perked up and started paying attention to everywhere the girls and their fellow actors went.  The mere mention of arriving in St. Augustine by way of Jacksonville - and their intended travel later down to Lake Kissimmee - well, I was anxious to see what real locales from these places would be mentioned.  Right off the bat, the girls hear about Fort Marion (Historic Fort Marion) and Fort Mantanzas (Historic Fort Mantanzas), two historic sites where the crew would be filming scenes for their movies (p. 66).  And when the girls go exploring, they decide to travel down St. George Street to see the Old City Gates (p. 67), which turns out to be exactly where the gates are located (St. Augustine Old City Gates).  The girls also pay a visit to an orange grove, said to be just a short distance from the city gates (p. 70).  While the Garnetts' orange grove was quite famous back in the day, it has since been sold off and is no longer there (St. Augustine Orange Groves).  And, of course, one cannot mention St. Augustine without mentioning the Fountain of Youth, to which the girls pay a visit (p. 73).  Of course, the book describes the fountain being located on Myrtle Avenue, when in reality it is located on Magnolia Avenue (Historic Fountain of Youth).  But let's not quibble about names...

There are a number of other factual descriptions on the story, from the old guard room and dungeon of Fort Marion to the alligator farm on Anastasia, and from Lake Kissimmee along the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee.  The only hiccup I found in the locales was the mention of Sycamore, which is said to be a small town near Lake Kissimmee (p. 102).  In reality, Sycamore is a town located up in the panhandle of Florida, and well over 300 miles away from Lake Kissimmee!  However, this is a minor detail, as we certainly can't expect the author to keep all points in the story exactly as they are in the real world!  And this slight discrepancy certainly does not take away from the enjoyment of the story.  I mean, after all, these girls and their friends and fellow actors are making silent films at the turn of the century right here in Florida!  And I will admit, it took me a minute to put the film making into context with the time period, because I kept wondering why the manager was yelling out directions while the cameras were rolling, until I remember that in 1914, films did not yet have sound!  Thus, it would have been natural for directors to be calling out things to the actors from behind the cameras to keep the action and story moving.

The story itself involved only a slight mystery - it seems that two young women that Ruth and Alice had previously met on a train (perhaps in a previous book?  this story is not quite clear on that point) have gone missing, and it just so happens that they went missing from Lake Kissimmee!  As the story goes, the two women went out to gather rare wild flowers and were never heard from again (p. 103).  The locals and even their own family believe they were lost in the everglades, and all hope was given up of finding the two.  Now, it is funny that they are said to be lost in the everglades, as a similar plot actually plays out many years later in the 161st Nancy Drew mystery, aptly titled Lost in the Everglades.  In that story, a young woman goes off alone backwater camping and disappears.  Was that story lifted from this one?  Who's to say...  But the fact the two girls in this story were hoping to find a rare orchid actually has a ring of truth to it, since the Vandeae orchid, which also has a part of its tribe the holy grail of all orchid-hunters, the "ghost orchid," is said to be local to Florida (The Ghost Orchid).  Thus, yet another touch of reality thrown into a fictional tale.

The overall story does have some resemblances to The Outdoor Girls in Florida (published just one year prior to this one, also under the pen name of Laura Lee Hope!).  As indicated above, both stories feature a character who comes to Florida in the hopes of improving their health; both stories feature boat trips through the everglades, with fearful encounters with alligators; both stories feature a man/boy in tattered/ragged clothes who comes to the rescue of the girls with a gun; both stories find the girls getting lost on the river after getting all turned around following a picnic amid the everglades; and in both stories, the girls do not really play much of a part in solving the mystery - they merely stumble upon the missing individuals.  In fact, there is even a humorous reference to the fact that the two missing girls are described as real "outdoor girls" (p. 106).  Perhaps that was a slight nod by the author to the actual Outdoor Girls, who themselves got lost while boating in the everglades.

I would be remiss if I did not also bring attention to the similarities to the frontis piece illustration of both The Outdoor Girls in Florida and this book.  In The Outdoor Girls, the scene depicted shows a manatee taking off with the girls' boat, having been caught in the anchor rope.  A man in a canoe stand ready to take a shot at the manatee in order to free the girls' boat.  In this book, we see Ruth and Alice in a boat with Paul Ardite, a fellow actor and love interest of Alice, and the boat is being pulled by a manatee who is caught in the anchor line, while in the background, Russ Dalwood, the film operator, is just filming away.  It is funny that both scenes feature a manatee tangled in the boat's ropes and unwittingly pulling the boat away from where it should be.  The only difference is, in The Moving Picture Girls' story, Russ tells them to let the manatee pull them as he continues to film it, believing it will make for good drama.  And in The Moving Picture Girls, instead of using a gun to shoot at the manatee, Paul uses his oar to simply nudge the manatee to go under and ultimately loosen itself from the anchor line, thus freeing it without any injury.  I find it too much of a coincidence that the same scene would basically play itself out in both books (and in both stories, the girls are fearful at first that it is an alligator that has snagged hold of their boat!), and even much more than a coincidence that both books, just a year apart, would have basically the same scene as their frontis piece!

Two final observations I wish to make on this book.  First, I find the presence of the omniscent narrator making his/her voice known throughout the book rather interesting.  Perhaps this was more common back in the early 1900s, but to have the narrator break the fourth wall and speak directly to the reader, thus breaking out of the story itself, is rather odd.  This occurs in a big way in Chapter Two, in which the narrator point blank addresses the reader:  "...may I take just a few moments to acquaint my new readers with something of the former books of this series?" (p. 12).  And with that question, the narrator proceeds to give brief synopses of the first three books in the series, providing not only titles, but also plot details and outcomes of those stories.  The narrator then goes on to provide brief descriptions of each character who plays a part in the story, from Ruth and Alice, along with their father, to all of the members of the film troupe!  This becomes a four-page break in the story that basically has the narrator speaking directly to the reader.  There are other moments in the book where the narrator breaks in to give reasons for jumps in time or to simply skip portions of the troupe's activities that the narrator does not believe to be important to the reader nor the story.  It gives the overall a book a sense of being told to the reader, rather than an adventure the reader is actually taking part with, and the closest thing I can compare it to would the television show, Young Sheldon, where the older version of the character narrates each episode, sometimes interjecting his own personal thoughts into the events of the episode.

The second observation I wanted to make is the reference in this book, as well as The Outdoor Girls in Florida, to orange blossoms.  In both stories, the girls make comments about orange blossoms in connection with their trip to Florida, and in both instances, the references seem to have a relation to thoughts of marriage (p. 69).  I did not realize this, but after a bit of research, I discovered that orange blossoms, "[l]ike the white gown, have been associated with weddings for centuries because the flower symbolizes virtue, love, and fertility" (Orange Blossom Brides).  I guess, as the saying goes, you learn something new every day!

I definitely enjoyed this story much more than The Outdoor Girls, and despite the similarities, the actual writing of the books appears different, leaving me to believe this book was not written by Howard Garis, who wrote The Outdoor Girls' adventure in Florida.  I was not able to find any identification as to the ghostwriter for this book, but perhaps someone out there has some information and can share it one day!

RATING:  8 dangerous bogs of quicksand out of 10 for a fun romp through St. Augustine and the Everglades, with a bit of historical film antics thrown in for good measure!