The natural: Meet Ocoee author Peggy Lantz

“A jack of all trades.”

That’s what Ocoee resident Peggy Lantz calls herself. 

Throughout her life, she has had many hobbies, including arts, music and writing. She has owned two horses and taken them trail riding. In her backyard sits a coop with 12 chickens. 

As a child, she dreamed of having her name on the cover of a book. 

At age 92, Lantz has fulfilled her dream with 10 published books to her name. 

WRITING JOURNEY
Lantz grew up in Miami until she was 7, when her family had to relocate to Massachusetts for her father’s job. 

Her journey to authorship started at a young age. In high school, Lantz wrote poems and had a few published in a high school poetry association. She won a poem award at age 12. 

Writing was just one of her many creative pursuits. She dabbled in different art media such as drawing, inkwork, painting and lettering. And at age 7, she began her piano lessons. The talent led her down a musical path that eventually led to a piano scholarship at Rollins College in Winter Park.

 “(I) made a beeline back to Florida as soon as I was old enough to leave home,” Lantz said. 

She wanted to get back to the warmth and a portion of her family that resided in Ocoee. 

At Rollins, Lantz went through a typical college experience, struggling with keeping up with an ever-changing schedule that came from classes and extracurriculars. 

“They had so many musical activities going on that I couldn’t keep up with them,” she said. “So I had to write them all down, so I put them on a sheet of paper and gave it to everybody else, too.” 

Lantz also started a newsletter — not knowing at the time it would be the first of many publications to which she would contribute. 

After graduating from Rollins, Lantz taught music for three years before she transitioned into becoming a musical director for 25 years. She continued on with life, raising four children in an “extraordinarily happy marriage” and kept up with her writings.

“I wrote articles and wrote some for Florida Audubon Magazine, and they eventually asked me to edit their magazine, so I became the editor of the Florida Audubon Magazine,” Lantz said. “But prior to that, I had those articles that I had written for that magazine brought to the attention of somebody who started the Florida Native Plant Society, and I was the editor of the Florida Native Plant Society magazine for 15 years.” 

Joining the magazines propelled Lantz to authorship. She learned much more about writing and had the opportunity to practice the skill much more than in her youth. She began to write children’s inserts to put in each quarterly issue of the Florida Audubon Magazine. 

The journey led Lantz to becoming the president of a writer’s organization. She wrote to the Pineapple Press, a publishing group, to ask if its editor would come to talk with the group. In the email, Lantz attached some of the children’s inserts she had written with Wendy Hale, a member of the Florida Audubon Society, and threw a Hail Mary by asking if the editor would turn those into a book. 

“(The editor) said, ‘I can’t come to your group, but I like your book idea,’” Lantz said. “My first book came out, and that was ‘The Young Naturalist’s Guide to Florida.’”

Publishing the first book was a yearlong process. She felt prepared, because she had learned how to organize pamphlets for the Florida Native Plant Society, but it was published in a time before computers were a tool and she had to write it on a typewriter. 

“I’d take (book pages) out to somebody to do the pictures for the printing,” she said. “I’d take them to somebody to do the typesetting. Then I’d bring them home, and I’d put them on a board, wax them and cut them up on strips and put (pictures) in, design the page. Then take them to the printer. He would photograph them and then put (the pages) on something he could put on his printing press.”

Publishing “The Young Naturalist’s Guide to Florida” in 1994 was an “at-last” moment for her, but the book was co-authored. She remained determined to publish her own.

Lantz found herself continuing to write books for the Florida Native Plant Society and she did a short pump pamphlet with a co-author, Dick Durling, on edible wild plants. Durling “knew his plants” and understood how to cook with them and gather them but lacked writing skills. 

That’s where Lantz came in. 

She began to translate the notes Durling gave to her into sentences, and they started to work on a book that identified native plants and taught readers how to cook with them. 

During the book’s creation, Durling died. But Lantz continued to use the knowledge he shared to complete “Florida’s Edible Wild Plants: A Guide to Collecting and Cooking.” 

It became the first book she published with only her name, and Lantz believes that’s a great accomplishment to reach as an 80 year old. 

The book is dedicated to teaching readers how to properly identify edible plants and forage off the natural lands that Florida has to offer, a love that Lantz holds close to her heart. 

A LOVE FOR NATURE
“I’ve always been interested in nature,” Lantz said. “I’ve always been happy with my trees and my weeds.”

Her grandparents lived in Ocoee at the property on which Lantz now resides. She has fond memories of visiting them, being outdoors and swimming. 

It wasn’t until Lantz started editing the newsletter for the Florida Native Plant Society that she started to learn about the nature surrounding her. 

“When I started editing the newsletter for the Florida Native Plant Society, I really just wanted to be an editor,” she said. “And then I found I liked native plants too. I did a great deal of learning by reading all the stuff that people sent me to put in the magazine.”

As she learned more about Florida’s native plants and saw firsthand the changes in the scenery of Ocoee — from groves of orange trees to the abundance of homes with limited natural space — Lantz wanted to play a role in preserving Florida’s nature. 

Lantz transformed a 5-acre property her grandparents owned into a space dedicated to native Florida plants. She rented a machine and cut out all the overgrown plants besides a few clusters of oak trees. 

“We planted Little Longleaf Pines and the grasses that grow in a sandhill habitat, flowers, grasses —  I call it my piney woods,” Lantz said with a smile beaming across her face. 

She received a restoration award from the Native Plant Society for the work she did to the property. Lantz tries to maintain her yard as a native plant sanctuary but she said it’s hard to keep up with the rapid spread of invasive plants from her neighbors’ yards. 

The passion for nature is what has led her to speaking out to commissioners, trying to fight for the preservation of Florida’s lands.

It’s what led her down the road of writing books about Florida’s nature to captivate people’s attention to the topic. 

“I just want them to be interested,” she said. “I want them to want it. I want them to stop wanting to kill bears and want to have marsh rabbits in their yards instead.”