Evelyn Fortune Bartlett
(1887-1997)

Died aged c. 110

Evelyn Fortune Bartlett was born in Massachusetts in 1887. After marrying Frederic Clay Bartlett in 1931, the couple renovated Bonnet House on Fort Lauderdale beach. She transformed the house and the surrounding property, turning a marsh into a lagoon surrounded by royal palm trees. As Fort Lauderdale grew and beachfront properties were developed, Mrs. Bartlett kept Bonnet House as it was in the 1930s. Her resistance to developers helped preserve one of the last mangrove swamps and coastal hammocks on the South Florida coast. In 1983, she deeded the Bonnet House to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation and in 1984 the 35-acre estate was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Evelyn Fortune Bartlett died in 1997 at the age of 109.

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