In January of 1880, Nellie Morgan was born during a viciously cold Boston winter. That winter was so cold that the family along with many others took comfort in hovering closely together around a smoky fireplace and reading aloud the glowing magazine and newspaper accounts touting the balmy temperatures in sunny Florida.

Her father, a skilled shipbuilder was confident of immediate employment because of the rapidly growing opportunities for his craft in Jacksonville.

Nellie’s father departed to Florida to arrange employment at the shipyards and purchase property in Switzerland, just across the St. Johns River from Orange Park. In 1882, Nellie and her mother joined him and soon after sister, Julia was born.

The family frequently traveled by boat across the river to visit and trade in Orange Park. Since the town was founded by and attracted many settlers from the Boston area, they at once made friends and developed close ties in the new community.

Mrs. Church an educated and refined woman early on encouraged her daughters in reading, fine sewing, etiquette and hospitality. In their free time, they fished and crabbed in the river. Often, they spent whole afternoons swinging, long petticoats flying, through the tall live oaks clinging to ancient thick vines.

At the proper age, the girls went to school in nearby Orange Park. Every morning they were bundled still sleepy eyed into the rowboat for the trip across the river and deposited on the dock. A short walk two blocks up broad sandy Kingsley Avenue, then a right on Reed brought then to the two-story schoolhouse.

In June of 1889, Nellie married Stanley Morgan an Orange Park boy and former schoolmate. The newlyweds settled in Philadelphia. After the death of their first and only child, they looked for a change of scene and traveled to the Isthmus of Panama. Construction of the Panama Canal brought together an international group of professionals and briefly carved out a happy and cosmopolitan community in the dense South American jungles.

In 1909, Stanley and Nellie returned to Orange Park and purchased the old Helfrich home at 1200 Plainfield Ave. in Orange Park. The house was small and dark. The yard was nearly barren except for a pitiful Spanish bayonet standing sentinel near the street. The original owner had planted the entire property right up to the foundation in orange trees that were frozen to the roots by the infamous Florida freezes of the late 1800s.

Nellie ordered cabinets, bookcases, fireplace mantles, doors and windows from a catalog. When they arrived by boat from Jacksonville, she hired local carpenters to install them and add a sunroom to the southern side of the house. Every room danced with sunlight but the pitiful state of the yard was visible from every room.

Nellie and her hired helpers transplanted live and laurel oaks from the woods. Friends shared cuttings of camellias and azaleas. She supervised the construction of a grape arbor and planted mail order Scuppernong grapes.

Years later, when Nellie hired neighborhood boys to pick grapes from the lush arbor, she always laughing told them to whistle the whole time they picked.