Evening Shadows Fall in Florida

Cocoa, FL

April 1, 1951

Best of Wishes from Florida

The Dunbars

Mr. James Parker

Main St.

So. Groveland, Mass.

Parker’s Store


Cocoa, FL was first settled in the late 19th century and got its name in one of two apocryphal ways.  The first theory is that a resident would offer hot cocoa to the passing sailors, which became so popular that they would shout "Cocoa!  Cocoa!"  The second theory is that another resident was inspired to name the town from a box of Baker's Coca she was using.  You can't make this stuff up- check out the official city history.

I covered who James A. Parker may have been in an earlier post about the correspondence between father and son.  The Dunbar surname is too common even for Brevard County to get a definitive identity on the senders.  Even the research on James Parker turned up no mention of a Dunbar branch of the Parker family tree, or why the Dunbar's would send such an impersonal greeting from Florida as if it were a very belated Christmas Card.  

Tropical Palm in Florida

Cocoa, FL

April 5, 1951

Still having good weather.  The cars are starting northward now.  They are travelling in large numbers. 

Best of wishes,

From,

The Dunbars

Miss Marion Parker

480 Main St.

So. Groveland, Mass.


Just over a month after the Dunbars sent this postcard to Marion Parker, Hurricane Able would brush the Florida coastline as one of the earliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. Obviously, even modern hurricane tracking cannot predict a storm moving more than a week before landfall, so the Dunbars must be observing the annual migration northward of what we in Florida call the "snowbirds."  It might be just me, but I sense an apocalyptic tone to this postcard, as if some horrible disaster had driven the winter residents away from the state in massive numbers.

That disaster is the sweltering summers here.

There are two places of interest for the identity of Marion Parker.  The first is a Marion Parker who is the chairman of the Greater Women's Club of Massachusetts Public Affairs, holding a publicity book fair.   The second, and more age-appropriate site shows a 1985 Lakeland Ledger obituary for Marion Parker, retired bookkeeper of Groveland, MA, survived by a nephew, Herbert Parker of Clermont, FL.  She is listed as a member of the Groveland Congregational Church, until moving to Lakeland in 1983.