Sullivan's Island Magazine Summer/Fall 2018

13 www.SullivansIslandMagazine.com | www.SullivansIslandHomes.com [ We Were Sullivan’s Island ] We Were Sullivan’s Island I n the mid-1970s, Betty Lee Johnson interviewed dozens of seniors living in the East Cooper area, learning about the history of this area and the people who lived it – things you won’t find in any history book. The stories were one of the most popular weekly features of The East Cooper Pilot, which closed its doors in 1979. Johnson compiled the interviews into two books in the late 1980s: “As I Remember It: An Oral History of the East Cooper Area” and “As I Remember It, Volume II.” The stories are priceless tales of a time long-gone, when Sullivan’s Island was a relatively quiet, military-focused island. Those who narrated have long since passed, yet their words still bring life to their memories of when they were Sullivan’s Island. MATTIE BROWN BornMay 12, 1884 Brown, a Saluda, South Carolina, native, took a job washing dishes for the McCullough Boarding House in Columbia in 1912 because she was tired of working in the fields with her family. She traveled with Mrs. McCullough to Sullivan’s Island and became her cook at a restaurant By Anne Shuler Toole the McCulloughs opened at Station 32 ½. She remembers being terrified to cross the Cooper River on the Sappho Ferry, saying that once she got here, she stayed because she didn’t want to cross the water again. “Oh, this was a wonderful place,” she said. “There were soldiers stationed at Fort Moultrie and they weren’t rough. They was mostly good, decent people. Why, they used to drill right up Middle Street.”