"We were poor back then, living on Ocracoke, and I'm not ashamed to say it. We were poor, but we had plenty of love and plenty to eat."

Thus spoke Linda Gaskill in a conversation about growing up in an old historic home, now known as the "Emma and Simon O'Neal house,” on Ocracoke's Lighthouse Road. Her younger sister, Judy Garrish, echoed Linda's words -- "plenty of love."

A little more than 100 years ago, an Ocracoke fisherman by the name of Simon O'Neal was joined in matrimony to an island girl named Emma. Emma was the daughter of Elijah and Elizabeth Styron, who were the owners of a large tract of land in the area of Ocracoke known as "Down Point."

Emma received a piece of this land, next to the Ocracoke Lighthouse, for her and her new husband's home, and sometime around 1900 Thadeus Gaskins began building it.

The Emma and Simon O'Neal House has seen a lot of Ocracoke history in the last hundred years, including hurricanes, children, and grandchildren. The years have taken their toll, but instead of being torn down, as has happened to so many historic island homes, this home is getting a new lease on life.

It has recently been bought by the Ocracoke Preservation Society (OPS) and has been cleaned up and prepared for re-sale. The house and lot, which are part of Ocracoke's Historic District, will be sold with protective covenants which require that the house be restored according to historic guidelines. It will qualify for state and federal tax benefits.

OPS president Bill Jones sent out a press release announcing the purchase on Dec. 8, and an open house was held on Dec. 12. The public was invited to tour the home, learn a little of its history and enjoy refreshments.

The house, located at 458 Lighthouse Road, has 1,056 square feet. It is a fine example of the architectural style of houses built on Ocracoke at that time, described by the National Register as: "Story-and-a-jump with hipped front porch with turned posts, original exterior end corbelled chimney, two-over-two sash, and wood shake siding."

The house has three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and bath rear addition. The lot has cedars and pines and a rail fence.

The organization responsible for saving the house, the Ocracoke Preservation Society, is a non-profit begun in 1983 to preserve "Ocracoke Island's rich historical, cultural, and environmental heritage."

It includes a fine museum on the island's history and a land trust and supports the Ocracoke Historic District and local cultural events, such as the music festival.

Buying a house like this has been a dream of OPS members for a number of years.

The "Save an Old House" fund was set up to help preserve old Ocracoke homes that might otherwise be torn down, but in spite of a number of donations, there had not been enough money in the fund to make a purchase.

That changed this past summer, thanks to a generous gift from the estate of Geraldine Beveridge, which provided OPS with a bequest of over $300,000 to be used for the preservation and promotion of the history and heritage of Ocracoke Island.

Beveridge had been a longtime visitor to Ocracoke, and she and her late husband, ferry boat captain David L. Beveridge, had contributed to scholarships for graduates of Ocracoke School, as well as other educational facilities. A resident of Beaufort, N.C., Beveridge taught school for 40 years in Carteret County.

OPS donated part of the Beveridge bequest to the Ocracoke Foundation for Working Watermens' Exhibit at Jack's Store. The biggest part they combined with the Save an Old House Fund to create the Historic Preservation Fund.

The fund will be administered by the OPS Historic District/Land Trust Committee, which consists of Trudy Clark, Paula Schramel, Ed Norvell, Frank Brown, and Betty Shotten. The mission of this committee is "to identify historically significant property, option or purchase it and place protective covenants on the property (which will) ensure the continuance of the historic integrity of the property when it is sold."

The committee is working with the organization Preservation North Carolina and the state Department of Cultural Resources and will provide information and restoration guidelines to prospective buyers. It will also assist in obtaining federal and North Carolina historic preservation tax credits. When the house is sold, the money will be returned to the fund so that another historic property can be bought and preserved.

Seeing their family home preserved is a wonderful thing for the O'Neal grandchildren.

Linda and Judy shared some of their memories of growing up, including seeing the light from the Ocracoke Lighthouse shine through their bedroom window. They do not remember their grandfather Simon, but he was, according to stories they heard, quite a character. A fisherman by trade, he was very witty and known for his "embellished" storytelling. He was invited to go to Washington, D.C., and entertained at the White House, according to Linda. Judy recalled that "they were gonna give him a liar's license."

Their grandmother Emma was very jolly and a good cook, and she loved to go to church (the Assembly of God Church near their house). She was a good housekeeper and would carry the carpets outside and beat them clean every spring and fall, remembers Judy.

"Sometimes," added Linda, "Grandmother Emma would send Simon to the store to get groceries, and he would get the groceries, send them home by someone else, and then get on a party boat and leave -- might not get back for days."

One of Ocracoke's older residents, Blanche Joliff, does not remember Simon, but she remembers Emma as "the kindest, nicest lady."  
 
"Uncle Thadeus Gaskins, the husband of my grandmother Ethel`s sister Nanny, built the house for them (Simon and Emma)," explained Judy. He and Nanny Gaskins had a workshop in their yard across from the lighthouse.

Simon and Emma O'Neal had three children -- Mary Elizabeth; Elijah, who had no children, and Benjamin, who had one son, Douglas. Mary Elizabeth married three times and had five children. She and her first husband, Leonard Mack Williams, had a daughter Maxine. With her second husband, Lewis Tolleson, she had twins -- ¬son Lewis and daughter Louise. Her last husband, Horace Gaskins, was an Ocracoker and the father of Linda and Judy.

Mary had worked at the Pamlico Inn before it was destroyed in the Storm of '44 and told her daughters that back then there were no shifts -- you worked from sunup to sundown. Later she worked as a chambermaid at the Pony Island Hotel for Alex "Elec" Eley. Her husband Horace had served in the Army during World War II, worked as a fisherman, and then joined the Army Corps of Engineers, working on big "hopper" dredges in Delaware. After returning to Ocracoke in 1970, he worked for the North Carolina Ferry Division and took hunting parties out to duck blinds with Alex Eley.

Linda and Judy lived in the O'Neal house until they married. Some of their memories include the coal stove the house was heated with and the oil cook stove in the kitchen—“you should have seen those biscuits!"

Also, "Do you know what we used for toilet paper? The Sears and Roebuck catalogue!"

 "We ate lots of seafood--Momma and Daddy loved clams and oysters, but nobody ate shrimp back then. But we had the best ice cream! Momma mixed cocoa and milk and sugar and vanilla and put it in an icebox and then in the freezer. It was good! And snow cream when it snowed -- snow and canned milk and sugar and vanilla, and sometimes she added pineapple.

“We weren't allowed to play with cards. They'd throw them in the trash if they caught us with them, and we weren't allowed to do anything on Sundays."

Christmas was a wonderful time for the girls. They said they got stuff they needed -- and they really appreciated it. Judy especially remembers a Christmas when she got a Kent three-speed bike and a big doll that looked just like a little girl.

Their older brother Lewis was in the Mounted Boy Scouts, riding Ocracoke's wild ponies and "sometimes he would keep his horse Lightning in the yard. That was back when the ponies roamed free in the village."

It was also during the time when the only way to get off the island was on the mail boat to Atlantic or driving up the beach on metal mats and taking Frazier Peele's old ferry boat across the inlet.

"If you met another car, you had to get off in the sand," the sisters reminisced.

Their house was built low to the ground, and during hurricanes, the water often came in. They had to replace the floor after Hurricane Gloria, and Hurricane Dennis popped the floor up again. After Mary died the house was closed up, and it has remained so until now.

The Emma and Simon O'Neal house can be viewed at the Preservation North Carolina Web page, www.presnc.org, or at the OPS Web page, www.ocracokepreservation.org.
 
The asking price is $264,900.

More information can be obtained by calling Paula Schramel at 252-921-0290 or Trudy Clark at 252-928-8029.