45 came into view. We got ready to take him across the footbridge, and he wouldn’t fit. So, we took the saddle off, led him across, and then put the saddle back on. I rode him from Station One up to Columbia Street. That was my first trip. I just felt … well, it was the most wonderful thing in the world I reckon, having a horse!” My grandfather would always tell us kids Star was a marsh pony descended from the steeds of the Spanish conquistadors, who explored the North Carolina barrier islands in the 1500s. The horses turned wild when their riders were killed or captured. “We only had him that one winter, but I did ride him that winter, baby, I’m telling you. I didn’t like to ride him with a saddle. I rode him bareback. I’d go out the backside of the house, head north, and go over the dunes and get over on the ocean and just ride him pell- mell up to Masons Inlet. He was always veering away from the ocean. You couldn’t get him to go in the water.” My grandfather never knew of another family that owned a horse on Wrightsville Beach. In the fall of 1933, my grandfather went off to Wake Forest College as a freshman. The next winter, he got a call from his mother saying the beach cottage had burned down. None of the family had been harmed — they had moved downtown to Third Street for the winter. My grandfather bummed a ride home from school, where he saw the total devastation of the beach. More than 100 houses were destroyed from the Oceanic Hotel north. White ashes blanketed the area. Among the ruins at 25 East Columbia Street was my great grandfather’s mustache cup, which to this day sits on Big Daddy’s dresser. My grandfather’s childhood photos all burned in the fire, but his stories live on. www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM Above: Jim and Lois Wallace, Wrightsville Beach, 1979. Right: Jim Wallace Sr. and his children, seated, Carol Wallace Davis; standing, Jim Wallace Jr. and Mary Beth Wallace. The photo above shows the almost complete devastation of Wrightsville Beach’s north end, taken by George Kidder in 1934, about a month after the fire. The names written on the photo show where cottages and hotels once stood and only chimneys and iron bed frames remained. PHOTO BY ALLISON POTTER IMAGE COURTESY OF THE BILL CREASY COLLECTION IMAGE COURTESY OF JIM WALLACE SR.
2014-9
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