Orlando, Tavares & 5,000 Roses for Irma

  Rockbridge Alum Springs Pavilion 1991 (Insert: Irma St. Clair-Abrams Smith)

Photo Courtesy Calder Loth (DHR 1991)

A Central Florida 2025 Holiday Series – Part 2

First, For Those Who Missed Part 1:

Irma & William married 134 years ago, in December 1891, choosing to wed in Orlando’s newly completed Catholic Church rather than in her hometown of Tavares, which did not yet have a Catholic Church. Said South Florida Sentinel of the bride, “Irma was one of Florida’s fairest daughters, whose beauty of person and character has won the admiration and love of all who know her.” The ceremony itself was something to behold, said to have “waves of bleached moss bedecked with flowers, roses everywhere deftly wrought into beautiful emblems and designs, and suggested the idea that every flower garden in Orlando had disrobed itself in honor of the happy event. Fully 5000 roses were used.”

The parents of the bride, Alexander & Joanna (Immel) St. Clair-Abrams, founders of the town of Tavares, appeared to spare no expense for their daughter’s wedding. Avenue House, on Orange Avenue near Church Street, was reserved for the happy event, providing lodging for out-of-town guests, of which there were many. Some guests came from the Lake County seat to the Orange County seat via the Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad. Other guests arrived from Virginia, traveling from Sanford aboard the South Florida Railroad. Virginia was the home of the groom, William Strother Smith, “assistant engineer in the United States Navy, stationed in Norfolk”

The bride and groom departed Orlando following their gala-wedding event of December 1891, seemingly taking with them nearly all local memory of their one-time presence here in Central Florida. Years later, the Orlando Evening Star did briefly mention the bride in an article dated 13 March 1912, stating, “possibly no woman who has ever lived in Orlando was more admired than Mrs. Strother Smith, formerly Miss Irma St. Clair-Abrams, who was not only beautiful and brilliant, but possessed a great magnetic charm.”

Forgotten no longer, this 2025 Holiday Season Series revisits a charming young girl who arrived in these parts before the first train ever began operating; a young lady who once had a Central Florida street named in her honor; a woman who still today is the namesake of a local lake; and a charming woman who was quickly adopted into Washington, DC Society. Buried alongside her husband in Virginia’s celebrated Arlington Cemetery, this holiday season we recall Miss Irma St. Clair-Abrams, aka, Mrs. William Strother Smith.

And now, Part 2 of Orlando, Tavares & 5,000 Roses for Irma

Rockbridge Alum Springs Pavilion (1890), Library of Congress

Irma St. Clair-Abrams, along with her mother Joanna as Chaperone, enjoyed their summer of 1891 at Rockbridge Alum Springs Resort in the mountains outside Lexington, Virginia. Twenty-three years of age at the time, Irma Francies St. Clair-Abrams had in fact been described in August of 1891 as “one of the three reigning Belles at the resort’s Central Hotel. “Miss St. Clair Abrams,” reported Society Editor Daisy Fitzhugh (1861-1943) in the Lexington Herald-Leader, “besides being a bright and passing handsome young woman, has a charming soprano voice in the bargain.”

One constant found in every write-up about Miss Irma was that she was always described as beautiful, intelligent, and admired by all. Irma had been one of sixteen “Belles” who spent away their summer of 1891 at Rockbridge Springs, each being wooed by male visitors to the Springs. Daisy wrote whimsically of the courting process: “The men filtered in gradually, one at a time, flinging themselves prostrate on the grass in interesting juxtaposition to thirty-two twinkling feet, and the business of the day began.”

Miss Daisy Fitzhugh also named some of the prominent families visiting Rockbridge Springs that summer, including several Navy families vacationing from Norfolk and Richmond. Three months after Fitzhugh’s article, engagement announcements for Irma St. Clair-Abrams began appearing in newspapers throughout the South. Irma was to wed, said each publication, William Strother Smith, Assistant Navy Engineer in Norfolk, Virgina.

Back in Florida, on November 23, 1891, the Florida Times-Union reported on a dinner given by the Orlando Improvement Association. Guests at the dinner included such prominent Orlandoans as Mahlon Gore, Matthew. R. Marks, John M. Cheney, and Mayor Palmer. The article concluded by stating “a very successful ball was given in honor of Miss Irma St. Clair-Abrams.”

Little known to historians of modern-day, the name Irma St. Clair-Abrams, in 1891, could be found in an article mentioning the best-known and most prominent Orlando pioneers of the time.

The Daughter of Sister Cities:

Truth is, Orlando and Tavares are sister cities. While it may not be as obvious today that these towns are siblings, history suggests otherwise. During the 1880s, three dozen plus independent railroads laid track throughout Central Florida, with one such track being the Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad line. Most of the tracks have long since disappeared. Most, that is, except for the track that connects Orange County’s seat of Orlando with Lake County’s seat of Tavares. Although rarely used, the track remains in place 140 years after being laid.

Alexander St. Clair-Abrams co-founded the town of Tavares while having his law practice at the original 1857 town Plat of Orlando. Alexander’s partner was Robert L. Summerlin, son of Jacob Summerlin, Florida’s Cattle-King. Jake and his son Robert attended the Orlando Incorporation meeting of 1875, a meeting that saved Orlando from becoming a Ghost Town.

Jake had acquired 200 acres on Lake Eola from George C. Brantley, a merchant working on a plan to construct the first railroad into Orlando. But Brantley died in New York City while trying to acquire iron rails, and so the law firm of St. Clair-Abrams & Summerlin was hired by George Brantley’s widow to settle her husband’s estate. The law partners acquired one of the parcels from George Brantley’s sprawling estate. On the parcel the two lawyers established a new city of Tavares, planning as well to connect their new town with the city of Orlando. Fourteen months later, Alexander St. Clair-Abrams bought out his partner’s interest.

 Jake’s Orange County Courthouse at Orlando

Henry Sanford wanted to move the county seat, but Jake Summerlin promised that if the seat was not moved, he would pay to build the best courthouse in the State. The county did not move, and Jake did build a new courthouse! Alexander St. Clair-Abrams promised that if Tavares was made the county seat of Lake County that he would build a beautiful courthouse. Tavares was made the county seat, and St. Clair-Abrams did build a beautiful courthouse. (The courthouse graces the cover of Tavares: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County).

Seven years old when she first came to Florida with her parents in 1875, Irma blossomed into a beautiful, well-educated young lady as her father established his law firm. The family had settled in the Golden Triangle, a wilderness area near the present-day town of Eustis. A day’s journey from her father’s Orlando law practice, as little Irma grew older, the time required to travel from Orlando to her father’s Tavares was lessened. Her father’s Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad began operating when Irma was 17 years old. When it came time for his daughter Irma to wed, Alexander chose Orlando as the site of the event – a spectacular wedding ceremony reportedly adorned with 5,000 roses.

Orlando and Tavares are indeed sister cities!

Lake County Lakes Joanna, Irma and Alfred were each named for Alexander’s wife and children. So too was Joanna Avenue, Irma Street and Alfred Street in the city of Tavares. Each of the lakes and all but one of the streets are still known today by names assigned to them in the 1880s. Only Irma Street has since been changed. Tavares merchants, desiring to improve their downtown in 1968, decided to rename Irma Street. Unfortunately, Main Street seemed more appropriate.

Newlyweds William and Irma Smith departed Orlando and settled in Virginia but then eventually relocated to Washington, DC, where William Strother Smith was assigned the task of finding a way to detect submarines during the Great World War.

 Irma (St. Clair-Abrams) Smith and her daughter, Margaret Immel (Smith) Kennedy

Irma St. Clair-Abrams. Meanwhile, became the beloved Mrs. William Strother Smith, described by the Washington Post of 3 February 1918 as “the wife of the rear-Admiral and a popular hostess of the National Capital.

William died in 1927, and Irma in 1934. Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, and TO ALL A GOOD READ