Michael Durak

Michael Durak was born on July 15, 1937, in Sanford, Florida, to Michael Joseph and Claire Marie Durak.

Mike loved music. He played clarinet and saxophone, was Captain of the band, was a member of a local dance band, and went to Washington as a member of the Navy Band. He also loved ballroom dancing.

Mike learned the ropes of running several local convenience stores with his father before choosing to attend the University of Florida in 1959. It was there he met the love of his life, Carolyn Rinaman, who was working to become a teacher. Mike majored in Geography and Earth Science and earned membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Academic Honor Society.

Mike and Carolyn were married in 1962 in St. Cloud, Florida. They lived that first year in Starke, where Carolyn did her first year of teaching while Mike commuted to complete the final year of his degree in Geography. In 1963 they moved to West Palm Beach, where Mike was hired as Geographer for the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control and Carolyn taught English at Forest Hill High School.

The two loved camping, hiking, swimming, canoeing, and dancing.

After two years they discovered a piece of property was available in Sanford, Florida, adjoining twenty acres of woods and pasture and a small creek that Mike’s parents owned. They both found positions in teaching and Mike began building their home on the new property.

When their home was completed, Mike decided he wanted to build a store such as his father had taught him to run on a corner near their home and was pleased to have his father join him as a partner. About this time a family was coming into being—Rebecca while they were building the store, and Jennifer fourteen months later!

Mike’s mentor in the Geography Department at the University of Florida got in touch with Mike and offered a grant for a special program for those who wanted to earn a Master’s Degree in Geography and Earth Science. So he sold the store and the family rented a cabin in Gainesville for the year.

Mike’s boss from the Flood Control was now working at the East Central Florida Planning Council and wanted Mike to join him. So Mike began the commute to Titusville. A couple of years of that commute grew difficult, so Mike returned to teaching. Subsequently, there were some years as a Planner for an engineering company and a number of years as an Environmental Planner for the Fifth District of the Florida Department of Transportation. He later spent a number of years as Geographer and Planner for Seminole County in Sanford. It turned out that he would work with one of those positions for a few years to earn more money, then he would return to the classroom to teach Geography to those seventh graders, then back to another position only to return again to the teaching that he loved.

Mike loved his daughters. He delighted in sharing skills and knowledge with them. The family had many camping trips together in National Parks. They enjoyed two horses on their property, and canoe trips on nearby spring runs. Once the girls were in college Mike and Carolyn became increasingly aware that their rural life was in danger from the level of development in Florida. Their search for a new rural life for the rest of their years led them to the purchase of their farm in Hardin County, Tennessee, in 1989.

Mike’s dad came to live with them in Tennessee and Mike began turning the 1897 dogtrot farm house that was on the property into a well-insulated home with a modern kitchen and bathroom. He loved the old cast iron wood stove that was in the house and brought its stovepipe and chimney up to modern safety standards. He became a master at building and maintaining wood heat, with all the skills necessary to cut and split wood from fallen trees on the farm.

There was a long and proud learning curve to developing a garden and an orchard in the years to come, as well as in raising a herd of Angus cattle. There were many cherished visits to the farm by grandchildren Jeremy and Nicole when Mike and Carolyn were able to play a part in their lives growing up.

Mike loved sharing vegetables and fruit with friends. He loved seeing wildlife in the woods. He loved his dogs. He enjoyed daily visits with his cows. He often said the secret to successful cattle farming was being a grass farmer—that the cows would thrive as long as he managed the pastures wisely.

Mike was a story-teller, as was his father before him. Mike and Carolyn collaborated in putting those stories together with Mike’s digital drawings in two books that tell Dad’s tale as an immigrant child who came to Malabar, Florida. Mike also illustrated Carolyn’s annotated book of her mother’s poems.

Mike always spoke of how blessed we were that folks welcomed us newcomers and were generous with their friendship. Neighbors around us on Hardin Creek shared their knowledge of ways that work living in Tennessee. And many contacts in Savannah helped us find our way and developed into deep and lasting friendships.

Mike is survived by his wife of 63 years, daughter Rebecca and her husband Mark, daughter Jennifer and her husband Billy, and grandchildren Jeremy and Nicole Penick. Jeremy is a Captain in the US army stationed in Ft. Carson, Colorado. Nicole is working in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and embarking on a degree in Sonography.

It has become the desired legacy of Mike and Carolyn to leave behind the woods and fields and pastures they have nurtured as a Nature Preserve, for which Jennifer and Billy will continue as stewards of the land.

For those who wish to do something in memory of Mike, here are four possibilities: The Nature Conservancy, Tenn Green Land Conservancy, The Land Trust for Tennessee, and HARRT Rescue—the Hardin Animal Relocation and Transition Team (which provides low cost spay and neuter for dogs and cats.)

The family plans on having a memorial celebration in the Spring.