Just months before, in 1896, she, her Norwegian mother and father, sister and baby brother, came from Minneapolis to create a pineapple plantation on a sandy hill in the wilderness south of what is now Vero Beach. Pineapples were to be shipped to market on the new railroad tracks they walked along to get to Christmas dinner at their nearest neighbor, who Inga described as an elderly war veteran and his young Danish wife. The war veteran spared no effort in putting together a memorable holiday dinner. Long before Inga s family began its walk, he killed a fat raccoon, skinned it and boiled the meat to soften the flesh. And he cut the top few feet off a cabbage palm tree.
Palm trees are hard to cut.
Sweat probably ran down the forehead of the war veteran as he muscled his way through the tree s tough fibers. From the bud rises the palm s fronds. That bud he sliced into pieces and cooked as a vegetable as he baked the boiled raccoon. Also on the dinner table were sweet potatoes and cow peas. For that, they gave a blessing.