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Articles About Patrick Smith And A Land Remembered Author Patrick Smith Breathes Life into Florida History
by Gary White The Ledger Published: Saturday, January 30, 2010 Florida doesn't have a Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. With all due deference to de Leon and DeSoto, not to mention Chief Osceola, the state lacks a historical figure whose very name is a brand evoking pioneer-era self-reliance. What Florida does have, though, is the MacIveys - straight-shooting Tobias and imperturbable Emma - who migrated southward from Georgia in 1858 and established a home in the desolation of the Big Scrub, enduring hardships unimaginable to the Disney generations. In the minds of many Floridians, Tobias and Emma MacIvey personify the hardiness of the state's earliest white residents. What separates the MacIveys from Boone and Crockett is this: Tobias and Emma never drew breath. They never trapped a raccoon, cooked with cat-tail flour or swatted a mosquito. Click here to read the complete article at the Lakeland Ledger Florida Schools Embrace Smith's Book For Teaching by Gary White The Ledger Published: Saturday, January 30, 2010 "I've never seen (students) respond to a book the way they did to that one," McCraw said. "I literally sometimes had to stand in the door and make sure kids weren't walking out with the book. They wanted to keep reading when the bell rang. I have even had students name their children after the characters in the book. I have a Tobias and an Emma." Click here to read the complete article at the Lakeland Ledger Smith Is Loved For His Lectures As Well as His Published Work By Gary White THE LEDGER Published: Saturday, January 30, 2010 For about 20 years, Smith held forth as one of Florida's premier lecturers, offering an oral supplement to his written contributions. The talks drew upon Smith's childhood experiences in Florida - or "Flah-duh," as the name emerged in the author's Mississippi drawl. Click here to read the complete article at the Lakeland Ledger Polk Notables Love Smith's Novel Griffin Family Patriarch Couldn't Put Down A Land Remembered By Gary White THE LEDGER Published: Saturday, January 30, 2010 The late Ben Hill Griffin Jr. had a reputation as a man attentive to all the details of his agricultural empire. His son, Ben Hill Griffin III, recalls the day he stepped into his father's Frostproof office and saw him absorbed not in a crop forecast or a livestock report but a novel. "My father has been known to be quite dedicated and astute in his businesses," Griffin recalled, "but when I came into his office and found him poring over 'A Land Remembered' and having hardly any recollection that I was standing in front of his desk, I realized at that point in time that he had a novel that he just could not put down." Click here to read the complete article at the Lakeland Ledger
All About Patrick Smith - A Florida Treasure By WARREN RESEN, Florida Outdoor Writers Association Member Published in the Farmer & Rancher beginning in May 2005 Tobias MacIvey was thirty years old and had been in the Florida scrub for five years. He had come south out of Georgia in 1858. In his horse-drawn wagon there was a sack of corn and a sack of sweet potatoes, a few packets of seeds, a shotgun and a few shells, a frying pan, several pewter dishes, forks, and a cast-iron pot. There were also the tools he would need to clear the land and build a house: two chopping axes, a broadaxe foot, crosscut saw, auger bit, a fro and drawing knife. So begins the story of Tobias, his wife Emma and son Zechariah in the Florida wilderness in the mid 19th century. The book is A Land Remembered, the story of three generations of a pioneer family in Florida and a story portraying the tenacity of American pioneers: how they survived and prospered in an often hostile environment. There are those still around today in Florida who sat across the dinner table from grandparents and heard first hand similar stories from those who where there when it happened. Click here to read the full article Florida Remembered As Beautiful Vacation By Angela Grogan-Henehan Advance your understanding of the beautiful vacation destination of Florida with the novel, A Land Remembered, written by Patrick D. Smith, in 1985. The book has earned him the "The Greatest Living Floridian" award and Pulitzer Prize nominations. The novel has also been adapted for K-12 classrooms as an easy to understand story of Florida history. Smith provides insight and understanding of Florida's unique culture by allowing it to be experienced through the fictional MacIvey family. Click here to read this article Are you a member of our Facebook group for A Land Remembered?  If not, please join us there and you can exchange thoughts and share information with other fans. Also, be sure to visit the Guestbook where you can read almost 150 entries from fans. Please make your own entry and share your thoughts with others.
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