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USF Graduate Captures Area's History

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By STEPHEN HAMMILL, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 8, 2008

KEYSTONE - When the Brooker Creek Preserve decided to capture testimonies from older residents in the area, it looked to an unpaid intern to do the legwork.

To date, Jamie Fridy has recorded and edited more than 100 hours of audio from residents of northwest Hillsborough and northeast Pinellas counties as part of the preserve's oral history project, called Recollections Shared.

Fridy conducts the interviews at the preserve's Environmental Education Center, 3940 Keystone Road. Some respondents come with prepared notes, and others answer general questions.

"We're mostly looking for information about the environment that encompassed this area," Fridy said.

The audio recordings range from seven minutes to nearly three hours in length.

"The thing I'd like to convey to the listeners is how rough it really was just 26 years ago," said Tom Goldsworthy during one of the interviews. "If you live in the city, you have no idea what things were like before the city was there."

Odessa's Virginia "Ginger" Little recalled her family's intertwined history with the area.

"My grandfather related to me that he could have purchased Keystone Lake one time for 10 cents an acre, but didn't feel his cows could drink that much water," she said. "My dad can remember when Gunn Highway was paved in 1922 and '23, and in 1933 they got their first electricity."

Some reflected on the effects of decades of growth on the area's water supply.

"These bay heads and these watersheds are here for a purpose," said Winona Jones, whose family history in the area dates to the 1850s. "This land helped to purify that water, and I'm not a scientist but I knew enough to know that.

"Nature still knows a little bit more than we about how things work," she continued. "You can't build and build and build one on top of the other and expect to have the water."

Fridy acknowledged the limited scope of experiences uncovered so far - mostly from children of landowners, all white.

"We've all talked about how nice it would be to have a more varied sample," she said, citing an untapped black community with ties to the segregation era.

"We're sort of in a holding pattern now until we get the word out and get more people to come in," she said. "I'd love to continue working on it."

A Florida native, Fridy moved here to study environmental policy at the University of South Florida, where she graduated in December.

"I fell in love with the area," she said. "It's nice to see people come in and share these stories. I don't think I've ever had as much time to devote myself to what life was like."

The sound files, once edited, will be featured on the project's Web site, which has been delayed by funding and staffing concerns. The unedited sound files will be transferred to Pinellas County's Heritage Village.

Fridy's internship is complete, but she continues to work on the project out of dedication and a desire to see it completed.

"It's probably going to take me another couple of months being here twice a week," she said.

For information on the project, call the Brooker Creek Education Center at (727) 453-6800.

Reporter Stephen Hammill can be reached at (813) 865-1523 or at shammill@tampatrib.com.

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