Charlotte's Story

There is a book about life in the Florida Keys that has all the elements of the modern pot boilers written about life at these lower latitudes, but none of the stereotypes. I can go through the remaining years of my life without having to crack a mystery story set in Key West, home of the Literary Eccentric Character. After all, I've read Charlotte's Story and that has given me my fill of true eccentric historical Keys people, at least in literature, to last the rest of my life.

Charlotte Arpin was a slip of a girl in her early twenties when she met a man ten years older, married him and took off for a life of homesteading the old fashioned way. Elliott Key is not that far from Miami but in 1934 it was a world away from the metropolis, it was an outpost where the young mechanic took his even younger wife to live as caretakers of the island. It was not a comfortable life.Russell Niedhauk was apparently of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction and he betrayed his Teutonic roots in his levels of determination and hard work. He and Charlotte lived an idyllic existence on Elliott Key, fishing, tending their garden and other crops, beach combing and meeting smugglers and Border Patrol agents on their rounds. Yes indeed this book has something of the illicit in its pages, not to mention rather obscurely illicit transactions in the metropolis lightly alluded to by the late Ms Arpin-Niedhauk. Not exactly car chases but close enough.It's a pretty book, nicely illustrated with drawings and photographs and the story it tells is illuminating for anyone remotely interested in South Florida history. Furthermore the story is told with a light touch which makes this an easy read, in case one could be worried about the style of a book written 70 years ago. The Niedhauks lived out their long lives in the Keys, moving on to take care of Lignumvitae Key later, what is now a park in the Middle Keys for many years. They were reportedly a well liked couple who ended their days on a houseboat in the Keys. But before all that, Charlotte took a trip to Key West and the final pages of the book include a tantalising description of the Southernmost City, including an illustration of the complexity of road travel before the 1938 connection was completed. That photograph of the car on the old (old!) Boca Chica bridge is never far from my thoughts when I travel Highway One. Perhaps one should be surprised to see so many cars on the island streets of Key West:This was the book, I think, that gave me insight and appreciation for the difficulties of life long ago in these islands before the advent of air conditioning, communications and modern conveniences. It is also the tome that reminds me to keep my feet on the ground when I am inclined to complain about gentrification of the Keys, because sure as eggs is eggs, I couldn't have pulled off the lifestyle the Niedhauks subjected themselves to, for decades. Not with the humor and understanding and easy insight that Charlotte brings to her writing.

Charlotte Arpin and Russell Niedhauk
Elliott Key 1934 and 1935.