Easter in Citrus County
By: Ken Marotte, Citrus County Historical Society
Eastertime and Florida are intertwined more than any other place in America. According to legend, when Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon approached a coast of America, the Spanish celebration of La Pascua de las Flores (celebration of the flowers) was being held in his homeland. Noting all of the flowers that dotted the new land, he named the area “Florida” in honor of the holiday and his heritage.
Early Easter Celebrations
You may think that Easter was dull and drab during Citrus County’s pioneer days, but that idea is mistaken. Newspapers at the turn of the century are full of Easter celebrations and advertisements for candy. Remembering the religious origins of the day, it was also time for attending church and going to concerts in the community.
A tradition known as the “Easter Parade” began in New Your City at the turn of the century. Well to-do citizens would promenade down the city streets in their finest new outfits. While Citrus county residents would use the opportunity to wear their newest clothes, there wasn’t an aristocracy that would support such a display of wealth. Formal Easter parades were celebrated mostly in big cities and weren’t a component of life in our county.
The expanded Easter Parade celebrations were the cause of a significant ecological problem for Florida. Large hats with lots of bird plumage were in vogue. Plumes from the snowy egret, in particular, were sought out as a garnish for hats that women would debut at Easter time. Historian Douglas Brinkley noted: “Dense bird colonies were being wiped out in Florida so that women of the ‘private carriage crowd’ could make a fashion statement by shopping for aigrettes. Some women even wanted a stuffed owl head on their bonnets and a full hummingbird wrapped in bejeweled vegetation as a brooch.” A conservation movement arose that eventually advocated for only using ostrich feathers for ladies hats, because ostrich plumes could be harvested without killing the bird and threatening avian species.
This doesn’t mean that some people in Citrus County didn’t show off their best clothes on Easter. They chose less-expensive but still stylish suits. In an era where some children were attending school barefooted, a showy display of wealth was definitely out of order in the county. Many women made their own dresses and competed with their neighbors to see who could design the most fashionable garb. They would often purchase enough material so that all of their children could wear the same pattern on their outfits.
Easter Cards
Sending cards to commemorate the holiday was fairly common in Citrus County. Merchants and drug stores in Citrus County offered special Easter postcards that could be sent to family and friends. Samples of some historic Easter Greeting cards can be found throughout this article. The cards could also be used by the community to rally the spirits of those who were overseas or in hospitals. In 1929 a young Lila Morrison from Inverness had been in hospitals with a serious medical condition since the previous year. She had been transferred to a specialty facility in North Carolina and felt disconnected from her parents and friends. The Citrus Chronicle organized a campaign to have as many people as possible send Easter cards to the girl. She was overcome by the number of cards that arrived at her room during the week before Easter. This heartwarming show of support showed her that the entire community was praying for her recovery.
Easter Eggs
It’s thought that Easter eggs were introduced during the Middle Ages to symbolize fertility during the upcoming year. Eventually eggs were dipped in dye and decorated to produce the holiday eggs that we know today. According to historian Ethel Carrington Spires, an old legend hold that frizzled chickens – distinguished by wind-swept curly feathers – came from eggs laid on Easter Sunday.
Charitable groups in Citrus County would use the occasion to sell decorated eggs to the public. Easter egg hunts were popular at the turn of the century and have remained to this day. Teachers would stage hunts in their classrooms and in the school halls. Church Sunday Schools organized egg hunts since the time before Citrus County was formally recognized. People were encouraged to bring some of the eggs from their hens to support these events.
Church Celebrations
Without doubt attending church services during Easter was the primary means of celebration. Special ceremonies would be planned for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The Catholic Church would walk through the Stations of the Cross. It was a time when members of many churches assembled for joint Easter Sunrise services. Choirs from different denominations would be blended to perform complex Cantatas. The Presbyterian and Methodist groups practiced long hours to perfect their Sunrise Service presentation. There were so many cooperative sects that Easter Services were moved to the Citrus High School campus in Inverness and the Community swimming pool area in Crystal River. A religious census in 1951 revealed that there were almost 20 different religious group in Inverness and most of them participated in the community Easter event. There were so many churches that the Citrus Chronicle decided to produce a monthly section devoted to religion that year.
Some of the more fervent sects would use Eastertime to stage Revival meetings under huge tents. People flocked to hear evangelists forcefully lead the attendees to a more devoted approach to faith. These events were as much about performance as repentance.
Family Get-Togethers
Easter was a time when families would welcome those who had traveled far away and returned home for a reunion. As is the case today, Easter dinner usually featured ham as the main course. The prices were much lower then but some people found novel ways to provide for Easter dinner. A resident recounted: “I can remember one Easter we were coming along the road from, I guess it was about the iron bridge in that general area…no, it was further up toward Nobleton, and some hogs or pigs ran across the road. So we stopped the car and we all got out and chased hogs through the woods. And we caught a couple of them. We were going to a picnic up there on the river somewhere. I don’t know how we kept them in the truck during that time.”
Commercialism
Eventually merchants came to rely on the Easter holiday as an opportunity to expand and promote sales in much the same way that they utilized the Christmas season. Advertisements for holiday-themed gifts and services filled the newspapers in the 1950’s and 1960’s. One shopping center even brought a petting zoo for wild animals as an Easter promotion. Purists editorialized that people were forgetting the reason for the holiday. The Citrus Chronicle continues to foster the remembrance of the holiday through its publishing of Easter holiday religious events and services.
Thanks to Elaine Koehler, CCHS’s Acquisitions Officer, for providing the vintage Easter Cards from the Society’s collection