Elders reminisce about Ocracoke back in the day

Editor’s note: This story was first published in the October print issue of the Observer.

Text and photos by Connie Leinbach

After about 30 years, Ocracoke cousins Lydia Freda Spencer and Bobby Garrish returned to the house in which they spent many youthful days.

Lydia, 92, (pronounced “Lida”) and Bobby, 87, were both born in their first cousin Alton Ballance’s house across from the old post office, which is now Captain’s Cargo.

Among the oldest island residents, Lydia, nee Williams, was born in 1933 and Bobby in 1939.

“We were born in the same room and the same bed,” Bobby said.

That was back when maternity care was done by island midwives.

Back in the early fall, the two reminisced on Alton’s porch, along with Lydia’s daughter, Elaine Spencer, and Alton’s brother, Kenny, about their days as youngsters on Ocracoke.

This was their grandmother Brittina Williams’s house; and her daughters, Vera (Alton’s mother), Nina Claude (Lydia’s mother) and Maude Thomas (Bobby’s mother) moved into Brittina’s house.

Along with Alton’s father, Lawrence and other island men who had gone up north to work in shipyards and on dredges, Lydia’s father, Milon Daniel Williams, went to Philadelphia to work.

Alton said that from the northeast, they would drive back to Ocracoke, spend a day or two at home, then drive back.

Bobby’s father, Uriah, was an island mullet fisherman.

“They was hardly ever home,” Lydia, in her island brogue, said about the menfolk. “So, my momma and his momma, we all lived here in Ma Brittie’s house.”

The four women and their six children lived in six rooms, including three bedrooms.

Bobby said four kids slept on the bed and two on the floor.

“The bathroom was outside,” Bobby said, and by that he meant the outhouse.

An old wooden cistern built by Uncle Maurice Ballance collected rainwater for drinking, “and we had a pump that pumped it into the house,” said Alton.

The house was a village hub.

“Everybody gathered on this porch when we were growing up,” added Kenny.

“This was Times Square,” Alton said.

The mail boat would arrive in the afternoon on the dock, he said, “and everyone would gather here and wait for the mail to call over.” 

“She was the ‘Ruler of the Ridge,’” Alton said about his grandmother. “She loved sitting here on the porch. None of the buildings across the street now were there. “You could sit on this porch and it was all open beach.”

Although Irvin Garrish Highway is only a few yards from the house tucked behind some shrubbery, when Lydia and Bobby were kids, the road was a sandy path.

There were very few cars and there was no harbor then. Only a “gut,” as it was called, and a beach.

The ocean wasn’t as far away from the center of town as it is now.

There were very few outside lights and it was very dark at night.

“Sometimes you might run into a horse when you were out walking,” said Lydia with a laugh.

The house right beside Alton, now owned by Tom and Carol Pahl, was built by Leonard Bryant for Bobby’s parents, Uriah and Maude Thomas Garrish.

While building it, the children (with the adults) slept in there, and because there were yet no doors or windows, Bryant would place a piece of plywood in the doorway.

“He’d board us all up inside there at night and then let us out in the morning,” Lydia said with a smile.

Alton showed his cousins some artifacts he found inside the walls of his house while he was renovating it after Hurricane Dorian flooded it in September 2019.

One small, greenish bottle was embossed with “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.”

“This was a potion they gave babies 100 years ago to calm them when they were teething or crying,” Alton said.

It was called a “baby killer” because it contained morphine, which was unregulated. Giving more of the syrup to babies who didn’t settle was sometimes fatal.

Alton also found a single baby shoe and a piece of a letter from his grandfather to Brittina, in about 1919, asking about the kids.

“In May of 2020 I was working on these walls and found them,” he said.

Alton’s mother, Vera, had issues, he said, “with all these kids running around stealing her perfume and jewelry.

“At one time, she was going with a Navy guy,” Lydia said. “He gave her a pack of chewing gum and she had it on her bureau. And between me and Maude Ellen and Chloe, we got into it and chewed it all. She didn’t like that one bit.”

“She was glad to see them go next door,” Alton said about the kids.