LAURA TURNER DREW


1905

FATHER: John Steven Drew
MOTHER: Catherine Strickland

Born: January 25, 1874
Barwick (Brooks Co.), Georgia

Married: Henry Bradham Croft
January 28, 1894
Dade City, Florida

Died: December 23, 1961
Dade City, Florida



Her Children

Frances Seay Croft
Clemmie Madelyn Croft
Drew Henry Croft
Wade Hampton Croft
Born

13 Jul 1896
26 Sep 1898
2 Aug 1906
24 Nov 1914
Died

4 Jan 1979
26 Apr 1982
17 Oct 1992
31 May 1992




Laura Drew was born in Brooks County, Georgia on 25 January 1874, the daughter of John Steven Drew and Catherine Strickland. She came to Florida with her parents in 1890 when she was sixteen years old. She remembered the trip as an adventure that ended in tragedy. They left home in January, walking beside a horsedrawn wagon filled with their possessions, and leading a cow. The family walked the entire distance from Barwick, Georgia to Dade City, Florida, sleeping at night beneath the wagon. Their greatest problem was crossing the rivers. It was raining and cold most of the way. The trip took three weeks. The travelling party consisted of Laura, her mother and father, her brother, John, her sister, Osceola, and cousins, Susan McGraw and Mitchell Drew. Osceola Drew, barely twelve years old, caught cold which turned into pneumonia. She died a month after they arrived in Dade City.

Laura grew up with the hardships of living on a farm in the pioneer days of Florida and was very independent. She was a good mother, an excellent cook and seamstress. She was also a nurse, which provided her keep after the early death of her husband, Henry Croft. She was a devout Christian lady, a regular member of the First Baptist Church of Dade City. She loved to go fishing, but never on Sunday. She gave up the farm after Henry's death and bought a house in town where she took in boarders to add to the family income. When she reached the age when it was no longer possible to work, her son, Drew Croft, built a small house for her next door to his on his farm southeast of Dade City. Her front porch faced a nice lake with a dock from which she could fish conveniently. She regularly brought in a mess of largemouth bass, which she called "trout."

Laura died at her home on 23 December 1961 at the age of 87. She is buried next to her husband in the Dade City Cemetery in Pasco County, Florida.

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