An Island in Time
by Dorothy Fitch Peniston
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An Island in Time, a memoir of growing up in the '20s and '30s, particularly on the Florida Gold Coast, by Dorothy9 (Fitch) Peniston (1904-1992). (New York, NY: Orchid Oaks Books, 1985, 151 pp.)
In 1919, the author's father, Winchester8 Fitch, No. 7864. a New York attorney, built a large winter home, called "Orchid Oaks," in a new community called Riomar, at what was then Vero, Florida,separated from the mainland by the Inland Waterway. All the construction materials had to be ferried across the water by boat. Later a bridge was built and the area was renamed Vero Beach. This book describes life during a period when private railroad cars brought the wealthy inhabitants for their two or three winter months of swimming and golfing each year in the Florida sunshine.
The picture on the right shows President Warren G. Harding being welcomed to lunch at Orchid Oaks by the author's sister, Alta Jane (Fitch) Hotchkiss. Winchester Fitch is in the center of the picture. The book ends as World War II begins.