Charlotte's Story: A Florida Keys Diary, 1934-1935 [B0847]

1973 PB with some cover wear. From the back: "Charlotte's Story is a spell-binding account of how a young couple manage to carve out a life for themselves on an isolated Florida Key in the mid-1930s. To survive without electricity, running water, or any other modern conveniences, they fall back on the ways of the pioneer Conch settlers. With her ever-resourceful husband Russ' guidance, city-bred Charlotte learns to cope with sandflies, mosquitoes, and scorpions; masters sculling a boat and extracting a conch from its shell; and discovers the 'beach store' is a treasure trove of needed household items. Their island home is visited by an assortment of characters so strange no novelist could imagine them. Rum runners, drug smugglers, and 'borrowers' threaten their lives and make off with their possessions. Border patrolmen and Conch spongers befriend them, naive campers and ne'er-do-well yacht ladies provide comic relief, and an old black man tells them his secret recipe for yarb medicine, a forerunner of Viagra. Residents of the Keys and visitors alike will be glued to this book as they follow Charlotte and Russ through one hair-raising adventure after another culminating with their struggles to survive the terrible Labor Day hurricane of 1935."-- John Viele, author of The Florida Keys: A History of the Pioneers."

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Not great literature, but a good diary about life in the 1930 in Florida!"; "This unique book will grab and astonish you how this young couple survived on an island off of Miami. The hero in this true story is Charlotte's husband. I loved this book!"; "This is one of my VERY favorite books. I love "based on a true story." It's amazing to see the characters survival techniques."; "This book is eye opening to the power of human will and survival. The couple worked as a bad ass team to occupy a vacant key in the 1930s; even surviving the historic hurricane. Great stories of people they met during their time on the island. Beautiful ending which I will not spoil; truly rounds the story off and make you realize how small the world is. Overall, worth the read & very admirable!"