Axie Lang: Cook, Midwife and Neighbor at Eldora, Florida

A caretaker at the historic Eldora community. NPS.

Eldora, a community that once thrived in East Central Florida and now lies within Canaveral National Seashore, was held together by its caretakers, grove-men, housekeepers and cooks. One of them was Axie Lang.

Life at Eldora

• Her work: for over 20 years Axie was cook and maid for the Warnock family, making life manageable for them and cooking for them and their guests. She was also said to be New Smyrna's best midwife; census records list her as a cook or a nurse, depending on the decade.
• Two households: she likely worked for the De Graw family too — she is recorded as beginning her twenty-first season at Eldora in January 1914.
• Her community: photographs in the Seashore's files from the early 1900s show local families at leisure in the presence of caretakers, who made up most of Eldora's African American population.

A guest's tribute

On March 1, 1916, an anonymous guest was moved to write:

To Axie, the clever, the real Southern cook,
needs never to get her skill from a book.
But bread, pies, and cakes
She most surely bakes
When placed on the table
Sharp eyes are unable
to find any scraps left by most ravenous guests.

A wartime patriot

• Red Cross: in 1918, Axie served on the Red Cross war fund committee, raising money for soldiers overseas in World War I.
• Her son: Hilton Lang was drafted on February 15, 1918, and sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 10, 1918, with Company C, 367th Infantry, 92nd Division.

Visit

Remnants of Eldora can be explored at Canaveral National Seashore, Apollo Beach, 7611 S. Atlantic Ave., New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Sources

Based on "Axie," by Ashley Lord, National Park Service, drawing on the Canaveral National Seashore Historic Resource Study (National Park Service, 2008), federal census and draft records at the National Archives, and the New Smyrna Daily News; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The tribute of 1916 is quoted in full.