Idella Parker From Reddick to
Cross Creek by
Idella Parker with Bud and Liz Crussell This book is the one Idella Parker's fans begged her to write--the illustrated story that tells what happened before and after she worked for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (described in Idella's earlier memoir) and adds frank new details about her years as cook, housekeeper, and confidante to Florida's Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1940, when a comic misunderstanding brought the plucky young black woman and the strong-minded author of The Yearling together, Idella already had left home several times--once, at 15, to teach in a segregated school, and later to work as a domestic in West Palm Beach. At age 26 she was back in rural Reddick--fleeing from "a romance gone bad" with a smooth-talking fellow in shiny shoes--when Mrs. Rawlings' big cream-colored Oldsmobile, with a bird dog in the back seat, pulled into her mother’s yard. During the next decade,
while Idella cooked and served, Rawlings entertained some
of the country's most famous writers and celebrities
(including Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, and Ernest
Hemingway) at her homes in Cross Creek and Crescent
Beach, Florida, and Van Hornsville, New York. Rawlings
also married her beloved second husband, St. Augustine
hotel owner Norton Baskin, and increasingly succumbed to
the bouts of alcohol and depression that eventually
convinced Idella to leave. Tracing events back, again, to
her hometown, Idella comments on the changing times and
offers counsel to young people about the values of work,
education, and racial understanding. With 126
photographs, this book adds fresh memories to existing
information about Rawlings’ life and presents an
intimate social history of black life in rural central
Florida throughout this century. Idella Parker, author
with Mary Keating of Idella: Marjorie Rawlings'
"Perfect Maid" (UPF, 1992), worked as a cook and
housekeeper for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings from 1940 to
1950. She is a native of Reddick, Florida, a member of
the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society, and a sought-after
public speaker. Bud Crussell, a retired newspaper
reporter, and Liz Crussell, a public-school teacher, live
in Ocala, Florida.
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"More details about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and about how an African-American woman grew up in early-20th-century Florida."--Kevin M. McCarthy, University of Florida Praise for Idella Parker's first book, Idella: Marjorie Rawlings’ "Perfect Maid": "A kind of literary ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ made all the more powerful because, as Parker says: ‘It’s all true. The good and the sad’."—Washington Post "Parker has led a remarkable life, but what makes this book worthwhile is its unique perspective on the complicated Rawlings."—Miami Herald "A
warmhearted and insightful tribute to the author of Cross
Creek and The Yearling, and it’s the
story of Parker herself, a tough-minded Floridian devoted
to her family. A charming book."—Booklist
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