41
Terry& Phoebe Bragg
THE SCENE: A college dorm room.
Phoebe is visiting with Terry’s roommate. Terry walks in,
carrying an intricately crafted model ship. Phoebe has no
interest in model ships but has an instant interest in Terry
and tries to sound informed about his prized possession.
SHE: “I thought he was aloof and disinterested, but he
was actually just shy. Later that spring, we all went to
Mardi Gras in New Orleans — that was 1976 — and when we
got back, we started to date. About a year and a half later, he joined the Navy;
he said he wanted to take care of me. He got a ring and we got married in Boone,
about a week after his commission. People called us Ken and Barbie, because we
were so young!”
“After he left, I would get a packet of letters and have to put them in order.
Sometimes the hand radios would patch him through, or I’d get telegrams.
If he thought joining the Navy was a good way to take care of me, good thing
he picked someone so resilient. I was raised on a farm in North Carolina and
I knew nothing about the military, or protocol; it was definitely baptism by
fire. I had some long, hard, cold, lonely winters but marriage is all about com-promise
and hopefully, those compromises are always given with grace.”
HE: “And after 30 years, and 21 moves, we arrived in Wilmington. I’m
now Captain Bragg, Director of Battleship North Carolina. And I always told
Phoebe, ‘After we get out of the Navy, you’ll get your dream house.’”
SHE, WITH A LAUGH: “I had a pretty good idea of what that would look like,
after all that. I wanted an old house, but with livability downtown, sunny. And
while Terry was renovating the battleship, I renovated our house.”
HE: “After almost 35 years of marriage, our life and travels together have
been like an all-you-can-eat buffet, a sampling of America, from sea to
shining sea. And we’ve had some times: Canada, Europe, Chile, driving
through Mexico, looking for hotels in the dark with two little dogs; Phoebe’s
been sprayed by a water cannon belonging to Pinochet’s storm troopers!”
SHE: “But of everywhere we’ve lived, Wilmington is my favorite place of all.
We go for runs on the river together and after you’ve been here a while, you
need to factor in the visiting time.”
HE: “It’s an unsuccessful run if we don’t run into someone we know.”
SHE: “I’ve never lived anywhere so friendly, and Terry’s always home. Right,
baby? Now, I tell him, ‘You can go back to the ship, just not overseas.’”
The model ship he was holding when they met rests on a shelf in their study
overlooking the Cape Fear River, not far from the Battleship North Carolina,
which has come to symbolize their shared destiny. Back in 1963, Phoebe came
with her family to Wilmington and joined the schoolchildren’s nickels and
dimes campaign to save the battleship. Nearly 50 years later, Terry became its
director. Just after he got the job, Phoebe showed him that girlhood picture of
her “saving the Battleship.”
HE: “Life with Phoebe Bragg is always fun.”
SHE: “And life with Terry Bragg is never boring.”
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM