On Tuesday, Aug. 18, I voted and got a history lesson. Can’t beat that, especially if you’re a writer and a curious human being which is sort of the same thing.
This wasn’t my first Florida vote.
I voted by mail from Ormond-by-the-Sea prior to that dreary November day in 2024.
Trump and SCOTUS are now working overtime to halt mail-in voting. So I ventured to the polls in Flagler County for the 2026 primaries.
At 18, I was not eligible to vote in the 1968 Florida elections. The voting age was still 21.
The 26th Amendment fixed that. It became law on July 1, 1971. "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote."
So, in 1972, I was 21 and old enough to vote under old rules and new. I voted in a tiny church on Boston's Beacon Hill. I voted for the man from South Dakota, George McGovern, a decorated World War II bomber pilot and fierce antiwar candidate. I put McGovern over the top in Massachusetts. Alas, Massachusetts is not the center of the universe. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" ruled the day.
I heard the news while working graveyard shift at Shriners' Children's Hospital. Physician from Mass General came on rounds and said. "Nixon won! You hippies are in for it now!" Not sure who he was addressing. Couldn't be me -- I wore a wig to work.
Fifty years ago, when I was a UF student a month away from graduation, I cycled over to my polling place in Gainesville and cast a vote for Jimmy Carter. Chip Carter had come to town and dropped in to rap with the Alligator staff. The Allman Brothers supported Carter and so did Hunter S. Thompson so that was enough for me.
In 1978, I moved to the West and voted there for 46 years.
Now I’m back.
My 2026 polling place was listed as the Korona Fire Station on U.S. 1. I remembered the town of Korona as a blip on the road from Ormond to Bunnell. Its firehouse was a tiny station that you get to before you hit the town. The Flagler County supervisor of elections sent us flyers reminding us that the station was “permanently closed” for firefighting purposes but will be open for voting. My first instinct was the curse the GOPers in charge of Florida for shutting down both fire stations and polling places. I’ve been so depressed since Trump’s 2024 win that I blame first, and then check it out. I’ll have to work on that.
I documented our voting experience in my Aug. 19 post. It was very pleasant. I looked up Korona on Wikipedia (Hey Wiki – I’m wearing my [edit] T-shirt!). It directed me to the Flagler County Historical Society where I looked up their info on Korona. Its history was written by the Sisco Deen, late of Korona. The historical research library at the museum is named for him. I e-mailed the society and thanked them for the info and they emailed back. Here’s some of what they sent me:
So glad to hear from you and your interest in Korona. The town was indeed the first planned Polish settlement in the State of Florida. St. Johns County Commissioner Isaac Moody purchased 40,000 acres in the area of what is now Bunnell in 1906 and hired marketer Thomas Verdenius from Chicago to sell city houses and farmsteads to people in Chicago. Verdenius had all of his marketing information translated into Polish and sent into a community of Polish immigrants outside of Chicago who had been farmers in Europe. In 1913 the first wave came down to investigate. In 1914 the first group moved down. They built St. Mary's Church in 1914 - the church still stands today. For the past month we have been speaking with descendants of the original Polish settlers to expand our knowledge base of the community.
This is like a gold nugget to writers who incorporate history in their work. The first planned Polish settlement in the State of Florida? Wow! What did those newly-arrived Poles, living in smoggy and crowded Chicago, think of muggy and buggy Florida? Some returned immediately to Illinois, some tried it out and then returned, and some stayed. The ones that toughed it out built a church which still stands today, according to Ed Siarkowicz, president of the Flagler County Historical Society. I plan on visiting the museum in the near future.
So what is a fiction writer to make of this? First, my always practical wife Chris asked, “So where will they build the new fire station?” The question rolling around in my mind was this: “What would a young Polish kid, one who knew a dozen English words, make of this swampy, bug-infested place?” Some rich writing material there. I also had to wonder what Poles settling in 1914 Florida might think of the Great War about to erupt all around their old homes overseas. If the young immigrant was anywhere near conscription age, he would thank his lucky stars. He might end up fighting in the U.S. Army but his homeland would not be under assault. And should that boy grow up and have his own family, his sons might be in the U.S. Army fighting Nazis who were murdering every Pole in sight and then, later, the Russians arrived to continue the killing. He might have relatives in the Warsaw Ghetto. He might have relatives who were Nazi or Commie sympathizers. Maybe they would return to their homeland to see the first Polish-born pope or get to see firebrand Lech Walesa in action.
I will keep all that in mind when I visit the Historical Society, 204 E. Moody Boulevard in Bunnell. It’s open for walk-ins on Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. You can also schedule an appointment. Mr. Siarkowicz supplied me with plenty of accessibility info and I thank him for that. I love these community museums. Such care is taken to preserve the past and usually funding is scarce.
During my arts and humanities stint in Wyoming, I worked with many of these organizations. You find oddities, like the two-story outhouse in the Grand Encampment Museum in Carbon County. Two-story? The volunteer docent in Encampoment may ask you if you know anything about winter snow totals in the Sierra Madre Mountains? Then the answer will come to you.
You never know what inner fire you may ignite with a story from the past.
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