The Hurston and Joe Clark’s

The Hurston and Joe Clark’s. . Across from this site (on People Street) once stood the eight-room, "one story and a jump" house in which the Hurston family lived. The Rev. John Hurston was the Town's third mayor and the second pastor of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church. His daughter, Zora Neale Hurston, is the widely acclaimed writer, folklorist, and cultural anthropologist. Zora relates many details of her life in the Hurston house and the surrounding community in her novels, Jonah’s Gourd Vine and Their Eyes Were Watching God., "We lived on a big piece of ground with two big chinaberry trees shading the front gate and Cape jasmine bushes with hundreds of blooms on either side of the walks. I loved the fleshly, white, fragrant blooms as a child, but did not make too much of them… We had a big barn, and a stretch of ground well covered with Bermuda grass. So on moonlight nights, two-thirds of the village children from seven to eighteen would be playing hide and whoop, chick-mah-chick, hide and seek, and other boisterous games in our yard.” , , Zora Neale Hurston, (captions) , The classic photo of Hurston in her trademark hat was taken by Carl Van Vechten in the early 1930s. Van Vechten was one of several white patrons who encouraged and supported the work of many writers in the Harlem Renaissance period. 1919-1929. , Joe Clark's Store sat just across Old Apopka Road (Kennedy Boulevard) from the Hurston house. Inside, Clarke sold groceries and general merchandise. The store also functioned as the Town's post office and "town hall." Townspeople often gathered on the store's front porch to swap stories and tall-tales and to tell riddles and jokes. Zora immortalized the "lying porch" as she called., Joe Clarke's store - "The Heart and Spring of the Town".