News

As a state wildlife manager for nearly 40 years, artist and conservationist Tony Florio lived with his wife Pat and their family in a 250-year-old house on the 6,000 acre Woodland Beach Wildlife Area.

Tony Florio new’s book is called Progger: A Life on the Marsh. Photo by Joanna Wilson.

Theirs was a colorful life, surrounded by the wildlife and beauty of the marshland on the edge of the Delaware Bay, as well as the humans who plied the marsh and the bay beyond for their living.

In his new book, Progger: A Life on the Marsh, Florio takes readers inside that nearly lost world, known to so few today, and introduces them to hunters, crabbers, farmers, watermen and, yes, proggers like the weather-beaten Old Jim, who spent his life catching snapping turtles with a 5-foot long rod called a proge.

Besides the Florio homestead, memories and often humorous anecdotes revolve around such places as Harry Blendt’s Crab House at Woodland Beach, Smyrna Landing, Flemings Landing, Collins Beach and Bombay Hook Lighthouse.

There’s even instructions on how to eat crabs, Florio noted with a chuckle.

“It’s about a lot of things — an ecologist’s view of the tide marsh and the wetlands, the Canada geese and a way of life associated with the Delaware tidelands,” said Florio.

In the works for more than 10 years, the 22-chapter, 270 page book with 40 illustrations will be formally released at a book-signing at the Smyrna Fire House Banquet Hall on Aug. 15. Proceeds from the sale of 1,500 softcover and 2,000 limited edition hardcover versions will be shared by the author and the book’s sponsor, the Smyrna Clayton Heritage Association.

Originally from Orange, Conn., with a degree in forestry from the University of Connecticut, Florio came to Delaware in 1949 to begin a 38-year career with the then-Delaware Game and Fish Commission, now the Division of Fish and Wildlife. In 1954, he married Dover girl Pat Marker, and the couple raised their three children Gwen, Roger and Kathleen in the old house on the marsh.

His photography, art, prose and poetry appeared regularly in state-produced calendars and the Delaware Conservationist magazine, now Outdoor Delaware, as well as other regional and national publications.

In 1985, Florio retired and went on a seven-month trip to Ireland before settling in Troy, Vermont. He and his wife Pat have made frequent visits to Delaware since. Initially discouraged from publishing the book because it was “too regional,” Florio set out to revise and complete it five years ago.

With the latest desktop publishing technology and the help of his computer-savvy wife, Florio prepared the book for its publication this summer by a Michigan publishing house, Thompson Shore.

“Pagination, margination, everything — I tell you, it was a learning experience,” he said with a sigh.

High resolution computer scanning technology also played a role in the book, to reproduce the details of Florio’s scratchboard illustrations. An art form Florio has practiced for nearly 50 years, scratchboard is a chalk-surfaced art board in black or white worked with dental tools to produce high detail drawings, he explained.

A strong supporter of the Heritage Association’s soon-to-be-completed Smyrna Opera House restoration project, Florio partnered with the SCHA on sales of the book when member June Sayers suggested it as a means to benefit them both.

Tony and Pat Florio will be attending the booksigning, which will include hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar, and art for sale including Florio prints and turtles sculpted in marble and semi-precious stones by local artist Richard Bailey.

Books will be available for purchase at the signing, $35 for signed hardcover editions and $20 for softcover. Books may also be ordered by calling the Smyrna Opera House office at 653-4236 or sending a check to the Smyrna-Clayton Heritage Association, P.O. Box 611, Smyrna, DE 19977. Shipping fees are $4 for one book and $2 for each additional book.

After the signing, books will be available for pick-up until Sept. 15 at Duck Creek Printing, 437 Smyrna-Clayton Boulevard, Smyrna.

If you go:

What: A booksigning for Progger: A Life on the Marsh by Tony Florio

When: 1 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 15

Where: Smyrna Fire House Banquet Hall, Commerce Street, Smyrna

Information: Smyrna Opera House office, 653-4236