Friday, July 15, 2005

Georgie is Alice Selver’s husband and they live across the street from Netty’s Store. The building was, at one time, Georgie’s grandfather’s house. He was a man who came to Salt Cay as an interpreter as he spoke 7 languages. Anthony Lewelyn Seymour. He became a merchant, and their home was once the store. He was from Bermuda and South Caicos. He had salt ponds and was very "middle class" for a man of color.

Georgie is now blind from aging and illness.

Alice was in the store/house during the 1945 hurricane, and the roof started to come off. She took her step-son out of the building and they hid under the wall in the dark for hours to avoid the storm.

Georgie was on a banana boat from Nassau to Haiti when the storm hit. They saw it swirling around Salt Cay.

Georgie said that when Salt Cay was "in shape" it was ahead of South Caicos and Grand Turk–especially with the bands. Georgie said they took goat skin and made drums. Bamboo was used to fashion horns. They made their own music with what they had.

Islanders worked in the salt from when the sun cleared the hill to when the sun set and you earned your 2 shillings 6 pence. Georgie said "your feet better be in the salt when the sun cleared the hill". Going to sea was a better option. So, like Ned, with a family to feed he joined the Merchant Marines and traveled on oil tankers through the Middle East.

Before that, during the war, he worked on sailing ships going from Nassau to Haiti and through the TCI’s. Brown sugar was needed by the Pepsi and Coca Cola plants in Nassau to make soft drinks. Granulated sugar was rationed, and unavailable, but the need for soft drinks was still great.

Georgie is quite the talker as Ned predicted and it was an interesting time
.

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