By Nancy Klingener and Breana Sowers
In 1957, Marie Cappick died at 81. The obituary described her as “one of Key West’s most distinguished writers and citizens of all time” and stated that “for 50 years, Marie Louise Cappick represented the cultural center of Key West.”
She was a founder of the Key West Woman’s Club and served as local representative for the Florida Historical Society, but she was no socialite. According to the obituary, “for the major portion of her active life, she was engaged in at least three different careers at one time. For many years, she was Post Office Clerk, Newspaper Woman and Official U.S. Weather Bureau Correspondent for the Gulf to Hatteras Area, and she supported one or more members of her family during most of that time, as well as all the local dogs, cats and chickens she could afford to feed.”
She lived at 415 Olivia St. and “(w)henever Ernest Hemingway was in Key West, he always spent at least a part of each morning with his witty neighbor across the street.” And she was no snob: “No matter what the shade of complexion, or a person’s would-be strata in the scheme of things, she always had a liltingly Irish bit of slightly caustic wit for a greeting.” In another story, a longtime friend described her as “independent and a little arbitrary.”
She was also a publisher, bravely starting a literary magazine called Paths during the depths of the Depression in 1934. The magazine included South Florida writers like the young Marjory Stoneman Douglas. And she included her observations of island life in small bits labeled “Random Shots.” Example: “Two beautiful poinciana trees were cut within a few feet of the ground, which to those who love trees was a desecration of the handiwork of the Creator.”
And this: “Key West has frequently sacrificed its citizens on the altar of hope, always with the view to pleasing outsiders. Now it reaches out to crucify those who by stress of circumstances need work for a small wage. If Key West cannot achieve distinction and front page publicity by some other means, then it had better remain the old Key West which we have known and loved many years. Charity begins at home and should be put into practice.” Marie Cappick, apparently, was not a fan of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration’s plans to enlist locals to clean up the island. Cappick’s work provides insight into how residents felt about their city, how it was changing, what was prioritized.
Her life’s work was a history of the island, and she published excerpts in Paths, as well as in a paper owned by the Key West Citizen called the Coral Tribune, 20 years later. She was a good writer and her love for her island home resonates in every word.
Yet she is notably absent from the historical memory of notable Key West women.
Part of that may be because her work largely remained unpublished or scattered through newspapers, magazines and ephemera rather than existing in widely circulated books or historical reflections. Historical memory often favors people whose work was formally published, financially supported or preserved through descendants and institutions. Cappick also appears to have died with limited resources and without direct heirs to champion her legacy. This happens frequently with women’s intellectual work rooted in local history, correspondence, diaries and scrapbooks, rather than traditional academic authorship.
Fortunately, though, Cappick’s legacy has been quietly surviving in the archives of the Florida Keys History Center. The collection includes several editions of Paths as well as scrapbooks containing a manuscript and newspaper excerpts of her history.
That’s where Friends of the Key West Library board member Betty Darst found them, when she was asked to research Cappick for the annual tours at the Key West Cemetery. Darst was immediately entranced and dressed up to portray Cappick for the tours as well as a celebration of the Woman’s Club that Cappick helped found.
“Not only did she contribute in so many ways – she was a marvelous teller of the Key West stories,” Darst said. “I have spent hours reading the scrapbook of the syndicated stories, which I would like to see edited and published.”
Preservation and documentation of local historic events and community memory often start at the personal level – long before larger institutions recognize something as historically valuable. People like Cappick often clipped and pasted fragile newspapers because they wanted to preserve stories that mattered to them personally and culturally. The fact that Cappick’s scrapbook may contain the only surviving copies of these articles shows how easily local history can disappear. It also demonstrates how much archives rely on individuals – often women working privately or informally – to collect materials that were not considered significant enough to save systematically at the time. (Or resources were not available.) Scrapbooks support and fill in gaps in historical records by honoring context, relationships, community landscapes and local events in ways official documents cannot.
A few weeks after Cappick died in 1957, there was a public meeting “with discussion of the need for a better public library in Key West,” according to the Conch Chowder column by Dorothy Raymer, the society editor of the Key West Citizen. “The second serious item for consideration is remembrance of Miss Marie Louise Cappick, writer and historian.”
Cappick had actually worked at the library for two years, Raymer noted, and she saw an opportunity: “When the time comes for establishment of better library facilities, I hope that Marie Cappick’s devotion to this town will not be forgotten. Some part of such an edifice, even if it is only one section of a book room, should bear her name, perhaps on an engraved plaque with a sprig of rosemary … ‘That’s for remembrance.’”
The Monroe County Public Library opened at 700 Fleming Street in Key West two years later. It did not include, as far as we know, a remembrance for Marie Cappick. But soon after its opening, Betty Bruce began the “Conch Room” collection that evolved into the Florida Keys History Center. And several issues of Paths, as well as the scrapbooks with Cappick’s manuscript and newspaper clippings of her history, found their way into the archive.
The Florida Keys History Center is in the process of digitizing many of the unique items in its collection, with plans to include the scrapbooks with Cappick’s work. Digitizing her work actively preserves the content of fragile items – and ensures greater accessibility for patrons and researchers who may not be able to visit Key West. These particular scrapbooks could support research topics such as journalism, women’s history, literary culture, tourism, civic identity and everyday life in Key West. Much of the island’s history survives in fragmented or vernacular forms like diaries, letters, etc., which is why Cappick’s collection is so invaluable to ensure local voices – not just the official narratives – remain part of the historical record.
Nancy Klingener is community affairs manager at the Monroe County Public Library. Breana Sowers is senior archivist at the library’s Florida Keys History Center, the foremost collection of documents and photographs of Keys history. You can learn more at keyslibraries.org/keyshistory.
