Category Archives: Outer Banks

Moving Experience

Among the many changes that our area has undergone recently, one was the relocation of the historic Salvo Post Office.

When I first moved here, it was all the way on the south edge of town, in front of Melvina Whidbee’s house. In this 1975 photo, Miss Melvina raises the colors for another day of work.

Built in 1910, it was always moved to where the postmaster lived. It’s my understanding that it was originally located near where Dan Leary’s store stood, shown in this 1977 photo.

When Edward Hooper became the postmaster in 1979, it was moved in front of his home.


Edward and his younger brother William, had to leave their home of many decades. The flooding from hurricane Irene inundated it, making it uninhabitable. It is ruined. They are now both living in a home in Nags Head.

The Hooper home now sits vacant and crumbling.

On a beautiful day in 1978, I took this family portrait in front of the Hooper’s. Edward and William stand beside their mother Mariah, flanked by neighboring nieces.

Around Thanksgiving of 2010, I shot this picture of William and Edward relaxing on the porch. I had just fixed a broken window pane in their kitchen that was letting the weather in. It was a very pleasant visit with them.

Last month some volunteers moved the tiny post office from Edward’s up to the Salvo Fire Department. It will be fixed and maintained to save it. The fate of the Hooper property is uncertain, but I can visualize the old house razed and replaced by a McMansion.

Workers remove the flagpole to prepare for the move.

Up, up and away.

Bill Barley’s forklift expertise is a key ingredient for the transition. Jimmie Hooper stands by.

This was a rare, once in a lifetime experience.

Half-way there.

Steve Ryan lends a helping hand.

Once officially deemed the second smallest post office in the country, the building settles into it’s new location.

In the meantime, Miss Elsie’s new house is well underway. It will be a solid structure to resist future storms.




Miss Elsie’s Place

Two weeks ago Elsie Hooper’s house was torn down. It was a relic of a home. Her husband Les passed away several years ago. He had told his children when they were growing up, decades ago in that same building, that the original part of the house was well over a hundred years old.

On the morning of February 1, a demolition crew arrived, to take down the house that had survived a multitude of storms, and had sheltered generations of family. When Les and Elsie married, they bought the old house from a nearby property, and with the help of neighbors rolled it to the location where they would raise their family. I suspect much of the house was built with hand tools, and as years passed and the family grew, it was added on to accommodate them.

Elsie and her grand daughter Amanda, take a last look at the interior of a home that housed love and memories.

Hand hewn beams supported a floor in the original part of the home.

Two of Elsie’s children and granddaughter came to lend some emotional support for an ordeal that must have been very difficult.

Well into the demolition, I can only imagine what was going on in Miss Elsie’s thoughts. Her past hopes, dreams and memories going into a pile of rubble. The heartfelt values of any thing left are intangible and within her soul.

Amanda comforts her grandmother.

Elsie looks on with daughter Sharon, and son Jimmie. Nothing could prepare you for something like this, yet I was amazed at their resolve and strength.

A few things were saved, like this beam taken from a shipwreck.

Jimmie Hooper holds some of the hand carved wooden pegs that held the roof rafters together. He plans to make a coat rack with them, for the new home that he’ll build for his mother.

Miss Elsie combs the ground for anything that will give her good memories. Knowing my affinity for oyster shells, she dug some up from around the house and handed them to me. She mentioned that she and Les had shucked and eaten many big oysters there.

Elsie’s new house will be built on the same spot as the old home. The concrete walk ways from the old house were once part of the long-gone Gull Shoal Coast Guard Station. They will be reused for the new house.

Considering the predictions of rising sea level and potential of future storms, I would venture to say that this new home may not have quite the longevity as the old one.

Ship Timbers

The treacherous waters off of Hatteras Island are known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Remnants of old shipwrecks can still be seen periodically as the shifting sands reveal these artifacts. Interestingly, these ships were frequently salvaged for their timbers.

Timbers from the Loring C Ballard rest on the beach south of Salvo.

Years ago, I watched Pete Covey replacing a sill of a home built in the late 1800’s. The old sills were timbers from a shipwreck, and a piece was discarded. Back then I used a wood stove to heat my house, and when I put a chain saw to it, the sparks flew, and the saw would barely cut the wood. As it turned out, the wood was very old heart pine. I gave up cutting and had to replace the ruined chain. That wood was extremely tough.

Since Hurricane Irene, I’ve noticed a couple of other homes built incorporating the timbers savaged from wooden sailing ships.

Levene Midgett’s home was built in the 1920’s. Levene was a keeper at Chicamacomico Coast Guard Station. This building’s sill is framed with 4×16 heart pine timbers, and is in beautiful condition. It was flooded to the first floor windows during the storm, and has been raised significantly to avoid future flooding.

This massive timber supports an exterior deck.

Floor framing detail under Levene’s house.

Looking up at the main sill supported by new pressure treated lumber.

The massive beams look as good as the day they were salvaged.

There’s still a lot of work to be done so that Levene’s descendants can reoccupy the house.

Another home affected by the flooding was Elsie Hooper’s place in Salvo. I have recently learned that this building is well over 100 years old, and unfortunately is scheduled for demolition. The inside was stripped out in hopes of saving this relic, exposing parts of it history.

A beautiful heart pine timber acts as a post next to a steep narrow stairway.

A floor frame still has a hole in it for a wooden peg.

Two vertical beams (left) meet where the original building had an addition built to meet it.

The walls were braced for extra strength.

Another 4×6 ship timber of heart pine.

The yard is decorated with the bones of large whale, collected many years ago.

By next week the old homestead will be no more.



Christmas 2011

Christmas will be different this year. Some of the usual decorated buildings won’t be lit this holiday, four months after Hurricane Irene. The old Salvo Post Office sits in front of William and Edward Hooper’s house. They are among the elderly of the villages, Edward being the oldest living male at 89. For years they’ve decorated the little building, but not this year. The Hoopers were displaced from their flooded home, and will never live in the family homestead ever again.

Salvo Post Office from 2008

Another place down the road is decorated to the hilt every Christmas. Janie Hooper has lived in that Salvo house most of her 90 plus years. It too was flooded and sits vacant awaiting it’s fate, still unknown to me at this time.
Miss Janie’s House in 2003

Despite this, we have a lot to be thankful for this holiday. Irene could have been worse than it was.

Merry Christmas everyone.


Homage to C.E. Midgett

When I made the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo my home, it didn’t take long to realize that it was also home to a cast of colorful characters. Among these native residents was Clarence Midgett, better known as “C E”. His family history goes back many generations on Hatteras, and it has been documented that they were some of the original settlers coming to the island after surviving shipwrecks centuries ago.

C E’s great-grandfather and namesake, Clarence Ezekiel Midgett was a member of the early US Coast Guard. Stationed at Chicamacomico during World War One, Midgett took part in the famous Mirlo rescue of 1918.  They saved the lives of 51 sailors from a burning British tanker that had exploded offshore after running into a German mine. C E was really proud of that legacy.

C E was also fortunate to have grown up on the island when the atmosphere was much more rural than it is today. The spaces were wide open then. The island world was their “oyster”. You could hunt, fish, surf, party and even work unencumbered. There were no crowds to get in the way. I must admit that C E was probably a part of what secured me to this area. The native folks are a unique breed, generous, mostly independent and don’t require much to get by. They still are my kind of people.

In the 70’s and 80’s, C E was a part of a crowd of locals that I used to hang out with. You could always tell when C E was around. You could hear him talking and laughing louder than anyone else. Like many of the native sons, he loved to fish, either from the pier or commercially, with nets in the sound.

Most likely, you could find C E around the creek in Rodanthe. Here he works on a skiff with his cousin Bruce Midgett (right), while D B Midgett (left) looks on. Photograph was taken 1975.

C E Midgett at the Rodanthe creek as a “Marlboro Man”, 1974.
C E sits atop a catch of big bluefish in 1974.
C E Midgett also had his moments of mischief. This time he drove this Falcon station wagon off into a ravine in Nags Head, near the present day Village Golf Links. The cops came and didn’t even give him a ticket.
Bruce Midgett (left) celebrates Midgett Day with C E in 1975, on the hood of his Ranchero.
Gerald O’Neal and Richie Austin converse in the background.
C E competes in the oyster shoot at the Old Christmas celebration in 1985.

Sadly, C E passed away on October 23rd after a prolonged illness.

Rest in peace, my friend.