of Summer Rest Road and Blue Street. My mother Brook
Holman Smith and her siblings Wright, Jane and Lucy were
the next generation to grow up in this special neighborhood.
Brook tells of a childhood spending lazy summer afternoons
on the waterfront in the “summer house”— a gazebo with
bench seats and a hammock, reading her favorite book, the
air sweet with honeysuckle and salt marsh and the wail of the
drawbridge siren reminding her of passing hours and boats
skimming through on their way to their next port.
The Holman kids also lived an outdoor life filled with
adventure and ingenuity. There were fig trees and wild black-berries
and huckleberries, perfect for eating straight from the
vine or for bringing home for preserves and cobblers. Wild
asparagus made great soup in the wintertime. Fire pits were
dug in the woods near the then abandoned Pembroke Jones
estate to cook potatoes and fry bologna and tell ghost stories.
Hurricanes would deposit gifts from beyond on the water’s
edge. Water skis and rafts were enjoyed by their newfound
owners and could be used to continue the never-ending search
for buried treasure.
My mother remembers the men floundering during the
early morning hours before dawn, and waking up to the smell
of that flounder frying in the skillet, along with a big pot of
simmering grits for breakfast. Often dinner was also caught in
the sea, and Brook’s favorite errand was to be given 20 cents
to walk across Wrightsville Avenue to Faircloth’s at the draw-bridge
and bring back a brown paper bag filled with French
fries and hushpuppies to serve as a side dish. Maybe a few fries
were enjoyed on the walk home, but there was always plenty
for the big family to share alongside the supper of deviled
crabs or steamed shrimp.
This neighborhood has provided important resources to
supplement family incomes and also to teach lessons about
modern day terms like sustainability and eating locally. Both
my grandmother Jean and her sister Nancy helped add to the
family income by crabbing. My Great Grandmother Nettie tells
the story of the night of Nancy’s high school commencement.
My Grandmother Jean was supposed to come downstairs in a
special dress the family had saved money to buy her. When she
was not ready on time, someone spied Jean down on the water-front
“in shirt and shorts, feet bare, crabbing, because someone
had given her an order for a pound of crabmeat.”
My uncles and cousins spent decades oystering, and what
wasn’t sold or given to friends as gifts became the main attrac-tion
in the famous family oyster roasts that have been happen-ing
in dairies and garage rooms and backyards for generation
after generation on Summer Rest Road. All my life I was
taught to only take the biggest crabs and fish that were caught
— we always threw back the young ones to try for again the
next summer.
Not only did many generations feed their families with
the bounties of the sea, but also from the abundant gardens
planted in yards, gardens filled with tomatoes, lettuce, string
beans, cucumbers and watermelons. Grandmother Jean’s
famous zinnias often decorated the sanctuary of Wrightsville
Beach United Methodist Church. The Bowden family nearby
raised chickens and my mother Brook fondly remembers
waking up on Easter mornings to find little tiny live purple
and blue and pink dyed chicks peeping up at her.
No matter the generation and changing times, the beauty
and magic of Summer Rest Road touches all those who spend
time there. My great grandmother wrote, “When I retire I will
come out here (the front porch) more often. I will place my
chair over the plank on the floor that needs mending, and I
will look over the shingleless top of the summer house on the
waterfront to the far spread of the tide, flooding toward the
line where it meets the beach. The beauty of it will seep into
my soul, and the vastness of it will remind me of the greatness
of God.”
As a child I watched that same tide from the upstairs
window. At the time, the homes had no air conditioning,
and looking back, I realized opening those windows opened
me up to a world of sensation and imagination. I would
have never known the pleasure of a cool bath after a hot day
of crabbing or the feeling of the bedsheets at night when a
waterfront breeze picks them off your skin. I would have
never heard the rush of the nightly symphonies of the cicadas,
smelled the decay of a dead low tide or the sweet smokiness
of a backyard compost fire. My imagination ran wilder there
than back home in the big city. The woods and the water
brought out the explorer in me, something manicured lawns
don’t naturally encourage.
summer rest road has changed quite a bit since then. Gone are the untouched
woods, the occasional cow or chicken, and the rustic summer
cottages. They have been replaced by beautiful modern homes,
lush lawns and dozens of docks built to withstand hurricanes
and house sophisticated boats. The land where the Pembroke
Jones estate was is now part of the Landfall community, the
space where the Babies Hospital once was will soon become
highrise condos.
However, the memories and stories of the past are still
squarely put, no modern progress or saltwater can fade
them or rust them away. My family still lives in the Summer
Rest Road neighborhood, and many of the family traditions
like crabbing at low tide, tending gardens and hosting
oyster roasts are carried on by the younger generations.
The landscape may be ever changing, but the magic and
the rest you find in this quiet neighborhood is something
that once found, is never lost.
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WBM november 2013