Yup, that's us. The building is now known as Eola House. Here in Orlando, perhaps the best known city park is Lake Eola Park, which has a fairly iconic fountain that's a sort of symbol of the city (that isn't Disney-related, anyway). Well, here:


That's the fountain. A few years back it was struck by lightning and knocked out of commission, and the city finally ponied up the cash to get it fixed--and basically rebuilt from scratch with all new lights and everything.

But back to the story. Eola House is on Washington Street, which is adjacent to the park. Once upon a time it was a residential street, but more recently, as downtown further urbanized, the homes lining it (buildings collectively known as the Eola Five) were turned into offices for attorneys and architects, etc. The company that owned the land intended to tear down all 5 houses and build a big office tower, but that idea was thankfully shot down. A couple years ago, the city decided to acquire the land to expand Lake Eola Park to include that stretch of Washington Street, and 4 of the 5 buildings were torn down. The lone survivor was 512 E. Washington, originally built around 1924, which you see in the photo above--it's now been converted into the park office, with some meeting rooms and a bridal preparation room.

But here it is around 1960:



You see, I have a bit of a family connection to the place. In 1957, my maternal great-grandmother married the man who owned the house, and moved in. He passed away in 1959, and she continued living there until her death (car accident) in 1971. Around 1960, my grandmother and her husband (my grandfather, who I met maybe once before he died) split up in Maryland, and she brought her 3 children (my mom and her brothers--that's my grandmother and uncle in the photo above) to live with great-grandma for a few months, while she got back on her feet and found a place of their own. And then a few years later, my Mom and Dad had their wedding at the house (as did my uncle Terry, the kid in the old photo). I always thought that was kinda neat, to have such a connection to a place that's almost famous. :) And yet I'd never actually been inside the house.

Until this week, that is! Heather's sister came to spend the night earlier this week, as she had a work thing to attend in the area the next day. So we tossed around some ideas and thought an evening stroll around Lake Eola would be nice. So we did that, and when we got around to Eola House we thought it would be cool to have Stef snap a family photo of us outside the house. While we were doing that, a park ranger spotted us and said that the house was open to the public during daytime hours on weekdays if we ever wanted to come back. I mentioned that my great-grandmother used to own the place, and he said well in that case, let me open it up for you to look around. Cool! So we took a quick walk through it. I snapped some pics, but I didn't have my wide lens and the light was fading fast, so nothing great. Might have to go back sometime and get better photos!

It's all fairly timely, because this weekend we're headed up to the armpit of Florida for a bit of a family reunion with my grandmother. My mom and sister are going, and my uncle and aunt and cousin who recently moved back to Florida will be there. On one hand it will be nice to see everyone, and grandma's 90 now so who knows when it will be the last time we see her. But on the other hand, pretty much everyone in the family but me has reprehensible right-wing, racist, evangelical, Obama Derangement Syndrome views that I'm sure I'll hear about all weekend. My cousin is an emphatic pro-lifer, and a young-Earth creationist to boot. Ugh. And I'm sure Amy will be her usual difficult self, especially since she'll be in unfamiliar surroundings. All that I am most definitely not looking forward to. But it's family and I have to love them, right? Shoot me. At least there are some state parks up that way we can maybe check out while we're there, or even take a drive over to the Gulf of Mexico--not sure the girls have ever really been to the Gulf coast.

Anyway, we'll see how that goes. But suddenly I have an urge to look more at genealogy and visit my great-grandmother's grave at Greenwood, which I've also never done.