Water (#52Ancestors, Week 14)

Outer Banks, North Carolina

The best water story I have comes from my own family history. For over 30 years our family has traveled to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to stay at the beach for a week. For years, going to Nags Head every summer for the family vacation was our tradition. After a while it became almost sacred. Changes loom now that my mother has passed and COVID-19 threatens our trip this year. But that’s the future. Let me share our family’s history at Nags Head, North Carolina.

It all started in 1986 when Mom decided to find a summer vacation spot at the beach. We lived in Indiana and going to the ocean was an exciting destination. She wrote away to Chambers of Commerce all along the East Coast (no internet research at that time!) and she picked Nags Head, North Carolina. She rented a small house right on the ocean and took her mom, my youngest sister Carla and Carla’s friend. They took two days to drive there. The three-bedroom house had no TV, no telephone, and no air conditioning. There were few restaurants and fewer activities. Mom, Carla, and her friend spent the days reading or sunning on the beach; Grandma stayed on the porch and crocheted.

Two years later the whole family went to Nags Head, Grandma included. We stayed in the same house, which was called “Lucky Us.” Mom and Dad had the master bedroom, I shared with Grandma, Stacy and Carla shared the third bedroom, and Chris slept in the living room. By this time there was a putt-putt golf course and a few more restaurants. We (actually, Mom) cooked some of our meals and some nights we dined out. We spent most of our time on the beach. We enjoyed breakfast on the porch, lazy days on the beach, family bonding sessions at night, and the majesty of the ocean.

After 1988 we went to Nags Head every summer; our seaside vacation was a constant in our changing family. We children were maturing, getting jobs, living on our own, getting married, and having children of our own, but we kept on going to Nags Head. We found larger houses that could accommodate all of us. Mom and Dad added a second trip in the fall, just the two of them. As our families grew and schedules changed, there were some years we couldn’t all make it, but most of us always went. We stayed all up and down the Outer Banks, in Kitty Hawk, Nags Head proper, and south Nags Head. Our most recent trip was way north in Corolla.

Family Dinner 2018

The Rest of the Family Dinner 2018

Over the years we’ve accumulated so many memories it’s hard to know what to include here. I’ll just end with a random list and family members can add on if they want to. I hope these give a flavor of the place on the water that is so important to our family.

Carl's First Nags Head 2001

Claire's First Nags Head 2004

We love to eat out at Owens', Sam and Omie's, and Lone Cedar.

We buy our food at Food Lion, Seamark Foods, Cahoon’s, and the Whalebone Seafood Market. Remember the year we bought out Cahoon’s stock of Nabisco Sugar Wafers!

Mom loved to go shopping at The Farmer’s Daughter, The Christmas Shoppe, and the Manteo bookstore, and we often went with her. The outlet stores were another popular shopping destination.

We visited other sites like the Bodie Island, Cape Hatteras, and Corolla lighthouses, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and the Elizabethan Gardens. We attended The Lost Colony outdoor drama in Manteo. We took the ferry to Ocracoke Island and took a tour of the wild horses north of Corolla.

We went went to the movies, we went golfing, fishing, and parasailing. We did puzzles. We played cards, Yahtzee, backgammon, frisbee, and bocce ball.

Carl learned to walk there. Chris suffered from his brain tumor there. Mom got lost there once in the early stages of her Alzheimer’s disease.

We often celebrated Bill’s birthday there. Peter chose Nags Head to ask my parents’ permission to marry me. One trip was specially dedicated to celebrate Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Sometimes I wonder if we love Nags Head because the ocean is "in our blood," so to speak. Our Swedish family comes from Skane, Sweden. This area is close to the ocean, but I don't have any evidence that our ancestors actually went to the ocean. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But I'm sure that now, after so many years of going to the beach, Nags Head is truly in our family's DNA.

Nags Head sunrise