To Suzanne Campbell, much of that history is personal.
Campbell's family has lived in Key West since the early 1900s. Her grandmother, Jessie Porter, lived in the building that is now the Heritage House Museum. Porter collected thousands of Key West artifacts and saved many of the items that belonged to her grandfather, Joseph Yates Porter, who built the legendary Porter Mansion at the corner of Caroline and Duval streets.
J.Y. Porter, a physician, was Florida's first medical officer. The Key West native practiced medicine from a home office on Caroline Street.
Campbell is donating many of her great-great-grandfather's medical and personal items to the Key West Museum of Art and History at the Custom House. In addition to the Porter items, Campbell also is donating her grandmother's collection of Key West artwork that was created during the Great Depression to bring the first wave of tourists to the island.
"The collection includes original watercolors and etchings that Ms. Jessie Porter collected in the 1930s, when they were brand new," said Norman Aberle, curator of the museum at the Custom House.
He plans to install the paintings within the museum's ongoing Ernest Hemingway exhibit.
"They will help give greater insight into what Hemingway found so fascinating about Key West, because they depict the Key West of the 1930s, when Hemingway spent the most time here," Aberle said.
The Porter items include a wooden writing tray that is still assembled with an inkwell, handle for carrying it without spilling and small drawers for pens, paper, stamps and wax seals. Campbell also found her famous ancestor's spectacles and a worn leather memo book and medical bag.
"I think my grandmother kept stuff because she worried it would be lost or stolen or destroyed," Campbell said. "But now we're happy that various groups and organizations are getting things that fill in the gaps of their Key West histories."
She has donated reams of documents to the Monroe County Public Library's Key West branch, relieved that they eventually will be scanned, digitized and available for viewing on the Internet.
"Now I don't have to worry about them being destroyed in a hurricane," she said. "And everyone can see them online."
The building that housed the Heritage House Museum was built in 1939, and was the home of Jessie Porter, who is considered by many the grande dame of historic preservation in Key West.
Peter Brawn bought the house and is expected to close on the property on Thursday. He plans to live in it when he is in town, Campbell said. Brawn also has bought much of the antique furniture that will remain in the home, but Campbell said she did not know whether Brawn plans to sell it or keep it.
