St. Simon's Island, GA

April 17th Saturday - Sunny Beautiful weather - High 85 degrees low humidity

We arrived at St. Simon's Island around 3:00 pm. This is a day that I shall always remember, as it was a dream come true for me.

Let me tell you a little about St. Simon's Island, it is about the size of Manhattan, St Simon's is the largest of the Golden Isles and therefore the most developed. But it's not without its charms - namely a clutch of unconventional churches, some great water sport action and world class golf.

My interest in St. Simon's came about from reading Eugenia Price's many books. She is a world known master storyteller. She has authored over thirty-six books, both fictional and nonfiction. She came to St. Simon's Island to live in 1961 and died there in 1996. She wrote about the early history of the Island with the names and lives of actual citizens. I felt like I knew most of the people that were buried at Christ Church's cemetery.

Lou and I relived the history of James Gould as he came to St. Simon's from Massachusetts to secure Live Oaks for the building of ships. He had a life dream of building a light house and in fact did built the first light house at St. Simon's and was the light house keeper for many years, and later building a wonderful home for his new wife and family. The original lighthouse was destroyed in the Civil War; however, it has been rebuilt, using Mr. Gould's original plans. Lou and I spent several hours touring the museum and reading all there was to read before driving over to Christ Church which the Gould family would have traveled by horse back or by carriage. The trip probably would have taken then an hour by horse, and the way is lined with the beautiful huge Live Oak trees with the beautiful Spanish Moss hanging from them. We remarked if they could talk they certainly would have stories to tell.

The family of John Couper were also very well know in this area, and he perfected the raising of sea cotton along with rotation of crops. Was the owner of a large plantation with slaves that were very well cared for in all ways. All members of the family were forced to leave during the Civil War and when they returned most of their beloved home had been destroyed and Christ Church had been used as a slaughter house; however, the Goulds, Coupers, Wylly, Hamiltons, Kings and several other families worked together and cleaned it up and rebuilt parts of it and reopened the church and it is still used today. In fact, Ms. Price is buried in its cemetery. A pastor was secured and he married one of the granddaughters and that is another story, and in time they were also buried directly behind Christ Church.

As I said a wonderful day and enjoyed by both of us. We returned to the RV park and had dinner here which was a seafood dinner.

Tomorrow we are off to a little further north, but not in a hurry, it is going to get cold up there again. Kris sent us many pictures of the spring flowers in our yard that are in bloom and it almost made us homesick

I might mention, that we had a phone call from Preston this afternoon and he told us that Susie had been admitted to the hospital. She has been having pain and loosing weight for over a month and a diagnosis has not been reached. Hopefully, with the hospitalization the physicians can find the problem and get it taken care of. We ask for prayers for wisdom for the physicians and relief of her pain.