This Week`s Library Program: Storyteller Kathy Dobronyl to Portray Florida Cracker History

Kathy Dobronyl is a teacher and storyteller. She comes to the Cedar Key Library this Thursday, March 14, to tell a story of the local turpentine industry of decades past. The program, upstairs at the Library, will begin at 5 pm.

When Kathy Dobronyl first met Dolores Cribbs, a Florida Cracker, the older woman said to her, "I wish someone would tell my story."

Using Cracker tales and expressions (and with a little help from a special hat and long dress), Kathy Dobronyl transforms herself into Dolores Cribbs to share stories about the Florida turpentine industry.

Dolores Cribbs found her family working at a Florida turpentine camp in the Big Bend area of Florida in the 1895 Florida census. Her great granddaddy never came back from the war, and the family moved from farming in Alabama to tapping trees and collecting gunk in Florida. Turpentine was a family affair. Entire families worked under the watchful eye of the "woodsrider" as he tallied the count of buckets collected from cat faces in the Florida piney woods.