Tanner often ate with the swampers

March 10, 1937:

In Florida near Cross City and the California Swamp that borders the Gulf Coast west of Gainesville.

After Tanner visited with Jim Cannon, an old bird hunter who claimed to have killed several ivory-bills in his day, he spent some time with an old-timer named John Butler who had lived about ten miles from Cross City for 75 years. Butler knew the swamps well and hadn’t seen an ivory-bill recently. He also told Jim that he had seen his last Carolina parakeet about 15 years after the Civil War. After wards, Tanner had lunch—corned-beef hash, rutabagas, bacon, cornbread, coffee—with Willie Hodge and his 96-year-old mother. Jim noted that she was blind and lit up her pipe after the meal.

Tanner often ate with the swampers he encountered along the way. They were generally very gracious with the young grad student, sharing their knowledge of the swamps and their sparse food.