The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday for the next several months, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear retired teachers and lifelong friends Karen Hurst and Cathy Goodacre Smith share treasured childhood memories of growing up on Fort Myers Beach in the 1950s and 1960s.
TRANSCRIPT:
JOHN DAVIS, HOST: Each Monday, we're featuring conversations recorded through the StoryCorps mobile tour stop in Fort Myers earlier this year. Today, we hear retired teachers and lifelong friends Karen Hurst and Cathy Goodacre Smith share treasured childhood memories of growing up on Fort Myers Beach in the 1950s and '60s.
KAREN HURST: We met at beach school in second grade when we were both 6 years old.
CATHY GOODACRE SMITH: Yeah, and beach school was a small local island school located on Estero Island, Fort Myers Beach. We had about 220 kids in the school, grades one through six.
HURST: Beach school was an interesting place. It was a great place to be.
SMITH: Oh, absolutely. My family had sailed down from Canada. I had just turned 6, and we had moved to Florida because my sister had pneumonia and asthma and needed to live in a warmer climate. And my father built a sailboat in the backyard, and we sailed to Florida, and I've been here ever since.
HURST: I happened to be born here, you know, and then there you were on the beach. It was just really cool. And we have so many parallels. First of all, your dad not only built the boat, but he also built your house. Well, you helped, too.
SMITH: We all did help. We really did; pounded nails in Portsmouth, but your dad, also, with your grandfather, built your house.
HURST: Yes, yes, the one on the beach. Yes.
SMITH: And that was not uncommon. I thought all fathers built houses.
HURST: So we both grew up to be teachers.
SMITH: We did.
HURST: That's amazing. I think it was the influence of our teachers at beach school.
SMITH: Probably so. At that time, all of the teachers lived on the island. Now it's not like that anymore. In fact, I don't think any of them do. It's become a different place, very expensive to live there, but when we were growing up, it was young families. A lot of them, the men were veterans home from the war and had come to Florida, I think, for training, some of them, and liked it so much that they came back. And in the summer, the place emptied out. The shrimpers went to Texas. The northern people went back to their northern homes. The island was empty. I mean, you could go out on the main road and not see another car.
HURST: Right. That's why we could ride our bikes without worry about traffic at all.
SMITH: Oh, tell them about the bridge.
HURST: OK, so between… there's a bridge between the two islands. We lived on San Carlos Island, which is a smaller island, and then Estero Island is larger, and it was a swing bridge, which means it pivoted in the middle 90 degrees so that the boats could travel on either side, going in and out of the bay. Mr. Pope used to run the bridge, and he was the bridge keeper, and boats would come up and be needing to get out of the bay. So they would blow their horn twice, and he would open the bridge. And occasionally, if you were in the right place at the right time, he would let you be with your bike on the bridge as he swung it open.
SMITH: Right. So we would ride the bridge.
HURST: We’d ride the bridge.
SMITH: It was great.
HURST: That happened once, and it got stuck open. And my brother and I had gone to the grocery store, and we're coming back, and there we were on the bridge stuck.
SMITH: How long were you there?
HURST: About an hour, and my mother was really mad at us. Where were you playing? Why weren't you here?
SMITH: After we finished beach school, we had to go to Fort Myers for junior high, and that was the longest bus ride. Gosh, it took, what? An hour?
HURST: An hour, yes.
SMITH: But there was just one junior high, so everybody from the county, and what a shock that was. Here was a school of, like, 1,400 kids.
HURST: That you didn't know.
SMITH: They didn't know us, and we knew everybody at the beach.
HURST: Yes, yes.
SMITH: Fortunately, we only had to stay there a year because they built Cypress Lake, and we were in the first graduating class from Cypress Lake High. Yes, 1967.
HURST: We’d rather be on the beach.
SMITH: Well, we would only go into Fort Myers about once every three weeks, on a Saturday. And you get dressed up, because it was a big deal, dressed and wear shoes.
HURST: Yes, had to wear shoes.
SMITH: Which we didn’t on the beach most of the time. But do you remember the shrimp festivals on the beach?
HURST: Yes. Oh, they were such fun.
SMITH: The shrimp boats would decorate and have a boat parade.
HURST: Um-hm.
SMITH: Oh, do you remember they had those tortoises that people would decorate?
HURST: Oh, yeah, the gopher tortoise races. Yes.
SMITH: I think that’s illegal now.
HURST: I’m sure it is.
SMITH: Yeah. It was just really fun.
HURST: Have you ever had coquina soup?
SMITH: I was just going to ask you about that! Yeah, we would scoop up the coquinas, this little colorful shells.
HURST: Little teeny things.
SMITH: And boil them and make soup. And then there was the sea grape jelly from the sea grape berries.
HURST: Yes, yes.
SMITH: Now I never made that, but I watched Mrs. Miller make it one time. It took a million of those because they had that big seed in the middle.
HURST: Right. So it's as big as a grape with a seed almost as big.
SMITH: Yeah, they were so good.
HURST: And so pretty. That sea grape jelly is just such a lovely shade of pink.
SMITH: I'm so glad that you and I have shared our lives because we just… our lives have paralleled.
HURST: Yes, we retired the same, almost day. And then we became grandmothers the same year.
SMITH: Uh-huh. So we're still doing stuff together. Well, this has been fun. I'm glad we had a chance to do it.
HURST: I think we should retire at the same time and move into a retirement community.
SMITH: Oh!
HURST: I really think that's what we should do and continue this.
SMITH: I think we should.
HURST: Yes and harass all the other residents with our stories.
DAVIS: That was oldest and dearest friends Karen Hurst and Kathy Goodacre Smith. Their conversation was recorded in Fort Myers through the StoryCorps mobile tour. This is WGCU News.
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