Jacksonville, FL — A local author hopes his new book about a quirky loner from the city’s past will get residents out walking their neighborhoods and connecting with neighbors.
Dr. Tim Gilmore unearthed from the historical society archives thousands of pages of handwritten notes and photos taken by resident Virginia King. King walked the streets daily for 50 years with a notebook and camera, recording city life. In “The Mad Atlas of Virginia King,” Gilmore tells for the first time how one woman’s obsession chronicled an era from Victorian houses and street cars to suburbs and interstates.
“My hope is that people will use this book to get out and walk the city,” said Gilmore, an English professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville, at a book launch in October.
King was a highly visible character around town for decades prior to her death in 2001 at age 86, according to locals Gilmore interviewed for the book.
She dressed formally in out-of-date clothes she bought at thrift shops. Duncan Sawyer was a young woman volunteering at a shop in 1964 when King walked in. Sawyer knew instantly who she was. “With that black little hat with the netting, the gray tweed suit, and her pocketbook under her arm, it was like she walked right out of the 1940s.”
Lifelong resident Dink Foerster also remembers her well. “She was a recognizable icon, always standing on the corner selling magazines.”
Gilmore said King used her meager income from magazine sales to buy notebooks, camera film, and bus fare. She bought bread and lunch meat – always eating the same thing – and said she was trying to figure out a way to cut back on the lunch meat. She expected the photo lab to process the out-of-date film for her Kodak Brownie camera for the same price for years.
According to Gilmore, King scoured the newspaper daily for news of marriages, births, deaths, and demolitions, especially those involving Jacksonville’s old families. She then either called by phone for more detail or knocked on their doors to ask a few questions and maybe sell a magazine.
“My sister always said Virginia knew more about our family than we did,” said resident Mary Love Strum.
“King was blunt and many people tried to avoid her,” said Hurley Winkler, the book’s illustrator. “But, in the end, she curated a neighborhood and a time period.”
In 1968, King self-published a 100-page book about the city. In 1977, she published an 869–page book. She revised and added to her work until close to her death in 2001. Her final, unpublished book was 8,500 pages with 23,000 indexed notes and photos in binders, now taking up a dusty shelf in the archives of the Jacksonville Historical Society.
Gilmore and Winkler will be reading from ‘Mad Atlas’ at the Silver Cow bar on King Street during the second annual Jax By Jax, a literary festival, held in Riverside. The event will feature 24 local writers reading their work in rotating intervals from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. The schedule and locations can be found on the Jax By Jax facebook page.
The book is available at Chamblin’s Uptown, on Amazon, and on the author’s website, www.jaxpsychogeo.com.
