Florence Walrath didn’t seem to skip a beat in her memoirs, she not only lived life fully, she grasped the  lessons of live even as she lived it, which suggests, to me, a person of unusual insight. She had her homilies about life and death, work and family, responsibility and manners and those ideas and values became the foundation of her life. She didn’t wonder about the right thing, she seemed to have a sense of what it was, and she just did it. I imagine her to be as inflexible as she was admirable. In her writing, there is a strong strain of athleticism, from work to riding to dancing. She seemed to pride herself on being a caretaker, a good girl who followed the rules and took care of others. I met a woman recently who was a friend of Florence’s and had a photograph of her dancing when she was 100 years old:

“Although pretty as a baby, Bill turned out to be a beautiful boy, deep red hair, brown eyes and a complexion to go with it. I helped take care of Bill (her nephew) when Blanche went somewhere. The two of them (niece Betty) were a hand full. One day they were sitting on the lawn by the road. I could hear them laughing and each time I looked, they were just sitting there. I would hear a car toot but still they seemed to be just sitting. Then one man stopped and told me they were throwing stones at the cars. They both got the whip on their legs for that and they stayed away from the road…I often laugh thinking what a good time they were having.

   Since I was a small girl I loved to dance. I could do all the square dances, but Mark’s mother used to pay me a dime to dance the round dances with Mark. This was at the Lauderdale dance hall. Later I thought I would die if I did not get to the dances at Hedges Lake each week. I most always went with Alfred Becker and his girl. After the dance I came home with Percy Morris and his wife. Now Mother liked that idea and always let me go. Later one morning, Mother said who was the stout fellow you were dancing with, he is a beautiful dancer. I was surprised and said how did you  know who I was dancing with? She told me then she had been over nights watching, you see she was making sure she could trust me. She need not have worried as up to this point, I thought boys were good pals to dance with. I always had all the dances, some good, and some I helped teach. Boys asked me out on dates but my love was still dancing and sports. One night Roy Armstrong and  Hap Bottom came over. Hap wanted a date with Blanche. We had a good laugh when I told him he better ask her husband.  I went out with Roy often. He was a wonderful dancer. He worked at Hedges Lake. he soon learned my interest was more on sports and dancing. He married one of the girls who had a camp at the lake. No hard feelings.”