I traveled alone for the first time when I was thirteen, on the train from Jacksonville to Pensacola, under the watchful eye of the Pullman porter who had been well tipped.  Jane was graduating from high school in Pensacola, and I went for the graduation and stayed all summer, taking piano lessons and luxuriating in being the only child with doting aunts and uncle.  "Buck", Annie Burke, was secretary to the commander of the Navy Yard, and drove daily in her Chevy.  When she got home we often took drives on the scenic highway and along the waterfront.  Uncle Charlie worked in the courthouse in land abstracts and "Tissie", Sarah Landrum Cawthon, was retired as Dean of Women from Tallahassee, but very active in the community with Women's Club and civic organizations.  All vibrant, interesting people who had marvelous conversations at the dinner table and I really soaked it all up with pleasure.  The house was filled with family antiques and memorabilia.  In this living room scene of afternoon tea with a visitor, you see the portrait of George Washington, in the family since 1785, the Inge secretary from 1840, and candlesticks on the mantle brought back from Russia just before the revolution.

Tissie took groups of students on European tours for many years, had a cottage in Scotland at one time, another at Cloudland, Georgia, and owned houses in Pensacola that she rented out for income.  That summer she undertook to teach me about money investments, proud that as a woman she managed her own real estate and stocks.  I went with her to the Savings and Loan, and the bank and safe deposit boxes, read her ledgers of accounts and talked about her cutting edge life.  She had graduated from normal school in 1889, married a classical language professor and designed a program for a model school.  When Stephen contracted tuberculosis, she went with him to live on a mountain top in dry west Texas, working on her model school idea.  As a widow she returned to teach in the local college before being named Dean at Florida State College for Women.  In retirement, many of her former students still worked on projects with her, and her expertise and influence were widely acknowledged.

I was like a sponge absorbing every detail, modeling myself on her confidence and optimism.