February 2011
February 2011
Cover Photographer Guy Livesay
February 2011
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PUBLISHERS: INGRID & NELI LEMME / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SUNNY LEMME
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Quote of the Quarter
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There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us. We'll find a new way of living,
DEAR READER
Guy Livesay
Award winning cover photographer Guy Livesay resides in lil’ Washington, but one of the favorite places to visit and photograph is Lake Mattamuskeet! Who can blame him? www.livesayphotography.com
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Valentines Day
My husband is very ill and that is why I decided to skip the January issue, to help him and to come to terms with all this and accept what we cannot change. Though I live and work in the lil’ fishing and tourist village of Montauk on Long Island, we consider our beloved Swan Quarter and Hyde County our home. If you would ask me why, I would have to tell
Our wedding anniversary is February 14th, Valentines Day. We were one of about 60 couples who got married on top of the World Trade Center on Feb. 14, February 2011
1999, as part of a 24-hour wedding marathon which was broadcasted on national TV. Please read the Valentines story as published last year in Newsday (cover story) in the back of this issue.
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you that I don’t know. I followed the call of the Lord, with my darling husband right next to me. Yes, I am in pain now and so are our children, families and friends from the North and the South, but we all will get through this because nothing happens in God’s world by accident. Not even accidents. - Thank ya’ll for your continued prayers! - Ingrid
...On the Board Walk... Lady of the Quarter
Man of the Quarter
Ms. Norma Earl Cahoon
Cory Carawan of Mattamuskeet Seafood
Movie of the Quarter
“Waiting for Forever� As its characters face love, death and their own preconceptions, "Waiting for Forever" questions the realities of life.
Kid of the Quarter
Coleman Davis, 10, already a gifted pianist
Couple of the Quarter Mr. & Mrs. Grey Hopkins
Business of the Quarter
The Village Consignment Shop in Swan Quarter, managed by Ms. Emily, has the most amazing treasures!
Organization of the Quarter The IBX Hotline
Book of the Quarter
Carolina Cottage by Margaret Ruth Little
www.obhotline.org
February 2011
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Kid of the Quarter Coleman Davis Ten years old.
The Son of Blythe and Kelly Davis of Swan Quarter is an extraordinary violist. He and his sister, Ann Blythe Davis, opened the ‘Simple Christmas Concert’ which featured David Roach.
Sunny Lemme took this photo that night at the Baptist church.
February 2011
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Man of the Quarter Cory Carawan Cory and his mother and father, Sherrie and Charles Carawan, own Mattamuskeet Seafood located between Engelhard and Swan Quarter.
February 2011
Photo by INgrid Lemme
Lady of the Quarter Ms. Norma Earl Cahoon For many years, until after Hurricane Isabel in 2003, Ms. Norma and her husband Mr. Hiatt Cahoon operated the Cahoon & Swindell General Store behind the new courthouse in Swan Quarter.
February 2011
Photo by INgrid Lemme
For Sunny
February 2011
Photographer Guy Livesay
There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us. Peace and quiet and open air Wait for us Somewhere. There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together with time to spare, Time to look, time to care, Someday! Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving Somewhere. There's a place for us, A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we're half way there. Hold my hand and I'll take you there Somehow, Someday, Somewhere!
Couple of the Quarter Mr & Mrs. Grey Hopkins February 2011
Photo by INgrid Lemme
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MR. HARRY’S TREE BY TOM CARMINE Old postcards can be fun. They allow us the opportunity to look back in time to see how places used to look. I recently found this old postcard of “Mr. Harry’s tree” in some of my mother’s correspondence.
The postcard was mailed in 1966, but the picture is probably much older. The back gives credit to the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The caption reads, Mulberry tree alongside U.S. Highway 264 east of Swan Quarter. This natural oddity was uprooted in 1932 storm and took root in present position and is still living.
The truth is the uprooting occurred in 1913 during a September storm. It became know as Mr. Harry’s tree after February 2011
Harry Swindell who operated the store at Swindell Fork after his father died in 1919. I am told that Harry’s wife Mary was on the porch rocking her son John Harrell when the tree fell over pulling its roots out of the ground.
Some of the branches on the down side of the tree were
probably impaled into the ground. For a mulberry tree this was a very fortunate event. Mulberry trees are a hardy lot. About the only way to get rid of them is to dig them out the roots and all. To propagate one about all you have to do is bury the branch in wet soil for about 8 weeks for roots to form. They will also sprout from the roots if the trunk is cutoff.
By the time this postcard picture was taken, the original trunk had been cut away as well as the rest of the tree. Only the rooted side branch remained with it new canopy.
Today the tree no longer resembles the tree in the postcard. As the accompanying picture shows, the old trunk has spouted so many new shoots in recent years that in summer it appears to be a large bush rather than a tree.
I do not know how the tree is, but given the size of the trunk when it fell, it was already probably twenty plus years. The farm was purchased in 1875 so that may date its original planting. Mulberry trees can live for several hundred years so it not surprising that this one has kept growing for well over 100 years. You may reach Tom Carmine by emailing him to tomcarmine@gmail.com
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February 2011
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PATRICIA GRAY CAHOON ‘MY EARLY LIFE’
What would be the best and most accurate description of growing up in rural, eastern North Carolina that would help others understand a place that it seemed time has passed by? Would it be the vivid description of living in a house with no insulation and only heat in two rooms, the living room and kitchen, or would it be describing the absence of indoor plumbing and managing ‘bathroom duties’ late at night in subdegree temperatures? How would a person who only felt concrete under their bare feet in the summer, enjoyed the pleasure of February 2011
central heat in the winter, never dodged mud holes in the driveway of black organic soil that is only five feet above sea level or stepped on a thistle while playing hide ‘n seek under the stars understand such a simple life? There are so many fond memories of a way of life that I did not come to cherish until began growing older. Like so many kids growing up in a rural setting, I longed to leave, vowing never to return. But there is no doubt in my mind that I would not have changed a thing; well, maybe one thing – added indoor plumbing! Assessing Currituck Township and what was decades ago thriving communities that boasted sawmills, a hotel, businesses and many family
homes, the small community of Makleyville that shaped many generations, including me, had either deteriorated from neglect or from a fire that destroyed enough in the early 1900’s that residents moved away, never to return. By the time of my childhood, all that remained were a few families, a lot of open space and plenty of fresh air. In the late 40’s, daddy, Kenneth Gray accepted a job with the railroad that took him away from home. With mama, Annie Elizabeth, pregnant with her second child, she and my oldest sister moved in with my grandparents, Ralph and Cora Green, for what was planned to be a temporary arrangement. But as the outcome revealed, they were destined never to leave. After Daddy decided he didn’t want to be away from home, he returned and the decision was made to remain on the “corner,” as mama always refers to it even today, staying with my grandparents in the old two-story house bordering Makleyville and Loop Roads.
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Granddaddy, Ralph Waldo Emerson Green approximately 20 years old when this photo was taken. Notice the size of his hands. He was a man of great physical strength and stature. Whether it is true or not I cannot attest to, but when I was younger I remember people who knew him before he died vowing that he could pick up 400 lbs. He died in the fall of 1960. He was my hero and remember being heartbroken when he died. I loved him as much as my daddy.
February 2011
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Living in a house with three generations and two sets of ‘parents’ had its challenges, but more importantly, it had its rewards. Looking back, one quickly concludes that even by Hyde County standards my sisters and I experienced the wonders of childhood that were more closely related to earlier generations. It seemed there were always friends and family coming to visit nights, weekends or just whenever the mood struck. Hardly a Sunday passed that someone did not stop by for a visit. The house fit the description as a true country farm place, sitting
February 2011
on four acres, allowing enough room for a garden, hog pen, barn, two chicken houses, outhouse, grapevine, fig bush, pear tree, lots of flowers and granddaddy’s old store that was converted to our playhouse plus a catch-all for anything no longer needed in the house. You just have to understand that we did not throw anything away. We just might need it one day and there was no money to replace the discarded item. All of this did work to the advantage of my sisters and me. When the gas cook stove replaced the old kerosene stove in the kitchen, we
had a new stove for our playhouse. That old building supplied many hours of fun and education as we grew up. Of course at the time, we did not realize the lessons we were learning from playing outside or pretending to manage our own house. But we learned to share and take turns without anyone interceding on our behalf. We also learned to take care of each other and cherish our friendship as sisters.
Photo: Kenneth and Annie (right) Gray and mama's mother, Cora Williams Green (middle) - taken approximately in the mid 80's outside the kitchen that originally was not attached to the main part of the house. Although it is now connected, the area is only a semi-closed in porch without heat you pass through to enter the kitchen and bathroom (added in 1981 and finally, running water!). Daddy died in 1994 and Grandmama in 1992.
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Thinking of the playhouse does remind me of a story that has to be shared, although I have to admit that I should not be too proud of myself. There was a day when Lee Williams came to play. He and my oldest sister, Linda were the same age and for whatever reason, I thought he was picking on her excessively. As any loving sister would do, I saw this as my responsibility to take matters into my own hands and rescue her from the tormenter, proceeded to grab my metal play gun and crack him on the head with it. WOW! Did that ever make him stop annoying her! In fact, I’m pretty sure he stopped doing anything except seeing stars as the lump sprang up from his head. The best I recall, Lee was very cautious around me after that, although he was five years older than me.
days a week, except Sunday night. No one ever left our table hungry. Sunday leftovers remained on the dining table, covered with a large white spread to protect the food from flies. We didn’t have snacks in the house except on weekends when there were homemade cakes or pies. Some of my best memories were going in the kitchen later in the afternoon before getting ready for church and making a potato salad sandwich; Yummy! Today when I mention a potato salad sandwich to my co-workers, they think I am crazy and want to know if that is a “Hyde County thing.”
Mama and grandmamma cooked three big meals seven February 2011
Monday and Friday were designated washdays. Early in
the morning, the ringer washer was pulled in the center to the kitchen and filled with water from the cistern. The white clothes were always the first to go in the clean water to be washed, then the colored things, followed by the towels and washcloths, ending with work clothes. There is no doubt this was a hard day for mama and grandmamma, but what a thrill for me when I was old enough to put the clothes through the ringers. I guess it didn’t take much to entertain me, and I was especially amazed with the contribution this mechanical monster had in shaping my domestic skills and willingness to help because I was allowed to. With seven people in the household, there were clotheslines all over the backyard to accommodate the enormous number of items to be washed. If you have never experienced the fresh smell of clothes dried by nature, you should promise yourself that you will do it at least once in your
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lifetime. If I close my eyes and inhale, it is so easy to recall the fresh smell of the clean sheets on the bed that had dried earlier in the day on the line. Speaking of the bed, with only a wood heater in the living room and the old wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen as sources for heat for the house with five bedrooms, all of the other rooms at the Green-Gray house were c-o-l-d. This was before electric blankets were sold, and going to bed in a cold room was made tolerable by mamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thoughtfulness of taking a small blanket, holding it up to the heater and following behind us as we ran to the bed, waiting to be covered by the warm spread. She then piled quilts on top, and we rooted in the toasty warm spot, remaining there with little movement all night.
taken out of the washing machine, each one was rolled up, placed in a bag and stored in the refrigerator until it was time to starch and iron them. A necessity in the 50â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 60â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for anyone ironing was an old Pepsi bottle with a sprinkler top to make ironing easier. I wonder if mama still has her old bottle. My bet is she does. As I look back on the exceptional life afforded me with experiences that money could not buy, loving, caring and supportive parents and grandparents, there really are not many things I would change. Even the lack of luxuries, contributed to the person I am today, and makes me very thankful for what I have. The lessons I learned were to:
Gather strength to work harder to reach my goals; Learned to never give up; Appreciate the sacrifices my parents made to assure my sisters and I continued our education past high school; So, would I change, even if I could? Not a chance!
Below: This is the old barn that is no longer standing and store/playhouse that is just waiting for a strong hurricane to blow it down. Behind this building in the back corner of the yard and the next lot over was the hog pen. To the right of the barn was the outhouse and one of the chicken coups. Both of these structures are no longer standing.
Girls were only allowed to wear dresses to school, and since there was no time on washday to dry and iron the many dresses that five females produced, after February 2011
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BOOK OF THE QUARTER CAROLINA COTTAGE A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE PIAZZA HOUSE BY MARGARET RUTH LITTLE Margaret Ruth Little’s new book is a celebration and a history of one of the most recognizable vernacular house types in the Upper South, the Carolina cottage. The one-andone-half-story side-gabled cottage—with its most distinctive feature, an integral front porch known as a piazza —offers not only beauty and hospitality, but a rich history. Intertwined with this history is the author’s own account of rescuing and living in a 1775 cottage near Raleigh, an experience that inspired and helps shape this charming book. The Carolina cottage appears by the mid-1700s in the eastern Carolinas. Substantial landowners and merchants favored the cottage type because of its sophisticated plan of one February 2011
or two main rooms, rear and attic bedchambers, and piazza, as well as its adaptation to the hot and humid climate. Little explores, and refutes, the longheld assumption that the cottage’s origins are Caribbean. She chronicles the cottage’s parallel existence in South Carolina as a summer retreat
built along the coast or in the pine barrens, where plantation families lived during summer months to escape malaria and yellow fever. The cottage remained popular as a small farmhouse or tenant house until the 1900s, but has reappeared in recent years as a nostalgic Carolina reincarnation. Little explores the cottage revival not just for the aesthetic appeal of its
compact form but for its humble efficiency, breezy openair living room, hospitable corner bedrooms, and the happiness that comes from simple, healthy living.
Margaret Ruth Little operates Longleaf Historic Resources, an architectural history consulting firm, in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1795–1975; Sticks and Stones: Three Centuries of North Carolina Gravemarkers; and Coastal Plain and Fancy: The Historic Architecture of Lenoir County and Kinston, North Carolina.
Margaret Ruth Little 128 pages, 978-0-8139-3009-1 • $22.95 http://www.upress.virginia.edu/ books/little.HTM
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VALENTINE'S DAY A BITTERSWEET MEMORY FOR LI COUPLE
Originally published: February 13, 2010
By DEBBIE TUMA. To Ingrid and Sunshine Lemme of Montauk, celebrating their 11th wedding anniversary Sunday on Valentine's Day is a combination of joy and sadness. That's because the Lemmes were one of about 60 couples who got married on top of the World Trade Center on Feb. 14, 1999, as part of a 24-hour wedding marathon. "Our wedding anniversaries are always bittersweet, thinking of how we stood on the top floor observation deck of the South Tower, and dealing with the heart-wrenching memories of 9/11," said Ingrid Lemme, 56, a marketing executive at Gurney's Inn Resort in Montauk. "It's hard to imagine that the site of our wedding is gone." February 2011
She said in all these years, neither she nor her husband has been able to go back to Ground Zero, or even watch their wedding video. "It's just too hard for us," said Sunshine Lemme, 63, who is an emergency manager and firefighter EMT with the Montauk Fire Department. "When I first saw the 9/11 footage on TV, I wanted to be a respondent, but I was 100 miles away, and I realized that with all the chaos in the city they didn't need more people showing up from outside." The Lemmes still have the "Lifetime Passes" to the top of the World Trade Center that they received on their wedding day, which were good for every Valentine's Day the rest of their lives. "It is so sad to see these passes every Valentine's Day, knowing we can never return to that place again, and also seeing the latest images of 9/11 which have recently come out," said Ingrid Lemme. "We'd like to see a museum built at Ground Zero, to commemorate the victims, and I would donate my wedding tape as a reminder of when this tower stood tall and solid."
She and her husband, who met in 1991, had each been married several times before. "We wanted something different, and we heard about this wedding marathon where couples got married every 20 minutes around the clock, and it seemed like the perfect place, on top of the world," said Sunshine Lemme. "I'm used to going up 100-foot ladders in my firefighting work, and I love heights." The Lemmes were allowed to bring six guests for their 10:40 a.m. ceremony. "It was clear and cool up there that day, and the views were amazing," said Sunshine Lemme. "After the service, we all took the elevator to the top where the TV towers were, to take photos, along with all the tourists." Sunday at Gurney's, the Lemmes will join 35 other Long Island couples who will renew their vows before Judge Jim Ketcham of Montauk. "It's hard that we have no place to go back to, to remember out wedding day, but at least we both know, that our love is here to stay," said Ingrid Lemme. Note: Originally published: February 13, 2010 9:53 PM
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SWAN Quarterly 137 NC Highway 45 Swan Quarter, NC 27885 Hyde County IngridHLemme@Gmail.com www.SwanQuarterly.net
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