The Treasure Trove
Gulfport History Revealed in Nash Family Collection By Amanda Hagood
AMANDA HAGOOD
From left, Julie Pitzer, GHS volunteer Peggy Bach (and daughter Maggie), and GHS Operations Manager Mel Zodda look through items from Julie’s collection.
This fall, at the Gulfport History Museum, history is coming to life. It began when Julie Pitzer of Longwood, Florida walked into the museum with a cardboard box and a question. Pitzer, who has spent several years tracing her family’s genealogy, had an old family photograph of a dozen or so men and boys in front of what appeared to be an old com-
mercial fishing shack. She was hoping to identify the location. But as she opened the box and began laying out dozens of portraits, candids, letters and other family keepsakes, Gulfport Historical Society staff and volunteers realized that this unassuming box was actually a treasure chest of local history. As Gulfport genealogies go, Julie’s is impressive. She can trace
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her ancestry back on her mother Nancy Massingill’s side to William L. Nash, who came from Georgia to what is now Pinellas around 1870 with his wife, Christian McCrae Nash and their nine children. Three more Nashes would be born here in Florida – the youngest of whom was Angus Lawrence “Laus” Nash. The Nashes would become one of founding families of the peninsula. Even as a child, Juile sensed there was something Old Florida about her family. “I grew up with an old kind of food, an old kind of cooking, lots of outdoorsy stuff.” She grins. “My peers were not eating alligator or mullet.” Her great-great grandfather Angus, who passed away in 1957, would live to see his pioneer settlement become the town of Gulfport, the wild days of Prohibition, and the emergence of modern Florida in the years after World War II. He was very much a part of this history: family legends tell of a still – hidden in the
theGabber.com | September 30, 2021 - October 6, 2021
