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Title
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Oral History Interview with Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 2026
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Description
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Barbara Gaskins, a member of the Friends of Portsmouth Island, shared her family's history and experiences on Portsmouth Island. She recounted her childhood visits, including travel by mail boat and plane, and described the island's historical significance, including its founding in 1753 and the decline in population due to hurricanes. Barbara highlighted her volunteer work with the Park Service, preserving historical buildings, and her efforts to document and share the island's history. She emphasized the island's self-sufficient community, the importance of preserving its heritage, and her plans to write a book about Portsmouth Island.
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Contributor
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Otter.AI
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Date
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April 15, 2026,
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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History Museum of Carteret County
East Carolina University
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Subject
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Portsmouth Island
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interviewer
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Cooper McBrayer
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interviewee
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Barbara Gaskins-Eugene
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Location
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History Museum of Carteret County
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Transcription
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Cooper McBrayer 00:01
Okay. Today's date is April the 14th of 2026. This interview is being recorded at the History Museum of Carteret County. My name is Cooper McBrayer, interviewer conducting the interview. ECU graduate student. I'm interviewing Barbara Gaskins-Eugene, Board Member of the Friends of Portsmouth Island organization. This is a part of Cooper's capstone project. Hello there, Barbara.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 00:33
Good morning.
Cooper McBrayer 00:34
Good morning. So why don't we just begin with you telling me a little bit about yourself and your family, and feel free to rehash some of the stuff we just talked about earlier, if you want to.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 00:48
Well, I grew up here in Morehead City. My father's people are from South Georgia, and we had moved to Charleston, South Carolina during the Second World War, so some of his relatives could go to work at shipyard. But when I was six years old, we came back to Morehead, and I grew up here in Morehead City. My mother is Clara Salter Gaskins, and she grew up on Portsmouth Island. Excuse me. When I was a child, I spent a lot of time on Portsmouth. I have provided a picture here in front of my grandparents house. It is now the Visitor Center for Cape Lookout National Seashore, and my son and I volunteered for the park service to go over, cut the grass and clean out the houses some. It is no longer, it is a historical Island preserved by Cape Lookout National Seashore. My grandmother was a post mistress of Portsmouth for almost 30 years, after she passed away, my aunt Dot Salter, or Dorothy Salter, took over for two years. At that time, the post office, closed down the post office because there were not enough people. There was only two or three, maybe three, people still living on Portsmouth. At that time, my aunt was the last School Teacher of the one room schoolhouse on Portsmouth. I would, I came over to Portsmouth different ways. I was a, you know, young child, so I either came over by mail boat. My aunt would go to Atlantic and meet the mail boat, and we'd come back to Portsmouth in the mail boat. One time I got to fly over there, because at one time, you could fly small planes and land them in front of the Coast Guard station.
Cooper McBrayer 02:48
You see that, I didn't know about that. And then Connie Mason actually mentioned that about the, about the little grass landing strip they had out there. Think she said the plane was called, they called it Sonny, and it was known for making people lose their lunch because it wasn't, Connie said it was not a fantastic flight to come in. But I didn't, I didn't know that people, you were flying Atlantic planes.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 03:13
If you ever get the chance, you may not even remember, if you go over there, there's so much stuff to see, but down the end of the landing strip, there's still in the grass, like an arrow.
Cooper McBrayer 03:27
Really?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 03:27
Yeah, and I rode out of, I came out of Beaufort with my aunt, and I don't remember the name of the plane, but I have the information about the pilot that I was going to you know, as I explained to you, one of these days I'll get around to doing. I didn't have any trouble. I thought it was fascinating. Now, I was a little, I mean, I was like, maybe eight or nine, maybe going on 10 then, because my uncle Buddy had passed away, and my grandmother had passed away. So I got there by mail boat, or that one time by plane. And I just thought it was just awesome. I wasn't scared or anything. He was good pilot, but that's usually how I got over there. Was by mail boat, and when I got there, I'd spend the whole summer there. When I was little, they kept me all the time, pretty much, you know, two, three years old, when I was over there, there was, there must have been about maybe 13 or 14, people that were over there all the time. That was their home. A lot of people, over the years, left for different reasons at one time, like most people do know, the, Portsmouth was founded in 1753, and it still, we all still belong to England at that time, and someone over there allocated 50 one acre lots, or almost one, one acre lots for people to homestead. And at one time, there were over 600 people that lived on Portsmouth. But with each, you know, terrible occurrence that came up, more and more people would would leave. A lot of those people went Down East, into all those settlements down there, because it wasn't that they wanted to leave North Carolina. They just, the hurricanes would be really bad. Sometimes. My grandmother never left Portsmouth, except one time. But she would move, if it was going to be really bad, she'd move her furniture upstairs. And in the older homes, they have a hole in the floor, and that's for, to let the water out if it got in the house, and when the tide subsided.
Cooper McBrayer 05:47
Like a drain, kind of?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 05:48
Like a drain, and she wasn't gonna leave, so she just put stuff up there. Now, I was not over there when there were hurricanes coming, because I started school, you know, I have to be here for the school year, but I would go there for, for the summertime. I have a picture of the old post office and the store my grandfather had now, when the park service took over Portsmouth, they tried to save several homes, excuse me, that were salvageable. So there's still several homes over there. The Park Service has restored. They look very nice. And this is the current post office. This is exactly how it looks today. And they restored that. They restored the church, they restored the schoolhouse. They restored a life saving station, which is right down pretty close to, well, on the other side of life saving, saving station is sand and all that. And then you go into the ocean. I have provided a picture of me as a little little girl on my grandparents porch. I'm very cute. I'm playing dress up. And I tried to get the girls that we had involved in that these are still nine and 10 year old children. They're too young to be growing up. I said, "How many play dress up?" And they just looked at me like, "We dress up at Halloween," and that's all. I did stuff like that all the time. But anyway, are you going to ask me questions? Because I can rattle on, so you asked me questions.
Cooper McBrayer 07:31
I was, I was just letting you, I was just letting you go as much as you wanted, because you've actually, you actually answered one of them already, and that so as a member of the Friends of Portsmouth Island, as you said, you also helped to volunteer with the Park Service. What are some of the projects I guess, that you've done and participated with in trying to keep the history of Portsmouth alive? I know you said you already that you volunteered with your son to man the visitors center.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 08:04
Well, when you do that, you kind of man the whole island. By that, I just mean the houses that have been preserved we clean out because they'll get right much traffic in the summertime coming to Portsmouth. So we just try to make it look nice. My son would cut the grass, we clean out the houses from the winter and greet people at this, at the Welcome Center. And Patrick would go do other things, whatever they used to have a couple of park maintenance people that would be out there. So he'd go volunteer, you know, volunteer to help them wherever they needed.
Cooper McBrayer 08:46
As part of the greetings, would you give tours?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 08:49
Not most people wanted to go on their own, but I would take them inside grandma's house, and they would get really excited when they found that it was my grandparents home and that I used to spend my summers there. So I would tell them different things about the island and the house and all this is an attic, as everybody would know. But what they don't know is you can stand up in this attic just about a full grown person, because they had a lot of space up there. Also what my grandfather moved this house from what they called the middle area, or middle community of Portsmouth, and then there's Shell Island, Shell Castle. Island (meant Sheep Island)-
Cooper McBrayer 09:32
Shell Castle. Yes.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 09:34
That's there, and they are underwater. Now, my grandmother and my grandfather lives on the middle island. They had a home, but they bought the one story house from my grandfather's brother in law. In other words, my grandfather's sister married my grandmother's brother does that. Make sense.
Cooper McBrayer 10:00
Yes.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 10:01
Because they were older, they were like 20 when my grandmother was born, and when my grandfather, or, you know, in that age range, then my grandmother was younger. And of course, my grandfather was younger. So their brother in law was going to go to Morehead, he was leaving Portsmouth. So my grandfather bought the house from him, and they moved it from there down the banks to Portsmouth, which I've always been fascinated with, but they used, now I can't think of the right term, but they used a horse in a pulley, and it would go round and round to move the house down there. Now all this was explained to me by my grandmother. She didn't share a lot, but I was always with them, and so she would tell me things that she didn't tell all the people. But I thought that was fun. And then after he moved and he built the upstairs with four rooms, three bedrooms and another room, they used to keep the trunks in, and they had a line in there where, I guess if they wanted to dry something specifically, or hang something specifically, they put it on that line. Because normally they would heat water on the little stove that I had up there to shut and then they would use the fig bushes. I think they had a line when my grandfather was alive, but then when he passed away, she just used the fig bushes out there. But he built this, he built the attic and all. I just thought that was very interesting.
Cooper McBrayer 11:33
Oh, yeah, especially the whole moving the house.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 11:35
Yes.
Cooper McBrayer 11:36
I've read a little bit about that, how they would like use rollers to move.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 11:40
It and has something to do with it spinning around or something turning around?
Cooper McBrayer 11:45
Yeah.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 11:46
I just thought it was fascinating.
Cooper McBrayer 11:48
Very fascinating. I've read a little bit on it, but I'm still working on reading more about it. You said you spent a lot of summers as a little girl over on Portsmouth. Was, were you essentially just on the island all summer?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 12:02
Yes, they would come get me by mail boat or the one time with the plane, and then when it was time for me to go home and go back to school, I had to go back the same way, by mail boat, usually.
Cooper McBrayer 12:15
So what did you usually do during those summers? As I'm thinking at that time it was only a couple of people still on the island.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 12:23
Well, we had a, let's see two, four-
Cooper McBrayer 12:29
Okay.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 12:31
-seven other people besides my aunt. Oh, and there was two men that lived in a little house on a side road going to another. So that was, there was right, many people. I thought, you know-
Cooper McBrayer 12:43
Still a good amount of people around?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 12:45
Yeah, I'd say maybe 15-16, people.
Cooper McBrayer 12:48
Okay.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 12:49
Henry Piggott, I know you've heard of him and his sister were, she was still alive, Miss Lizzie. And so we go visit then, then we had Marian Gray that would come and her sister, Elmo and, or Elma. I'm not exactly sure I'd have to go back and look.
Cooper McBrayer 13:07
I think it is Elma.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 13:09
That sounds right.
Cooper McBrayer 13:10
Yeah, because I've seen her name on a couple of recordings as well.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 13:13
Well, they, she, she had one house, and Marian Gray had the other house, but they were right beside each other, and they still live there. And then there was two men, Will and his brother, I think his brother might have been Tom, I'd have to go back and look at my notes. They lived there in a tiny, little house, but we had to go buy it when we went up to the big yellow house that was Jody Styron's house. And he lived there his, a woman lived there was either his wife or his brother's wife. I'd have to go back and look at my notes, and she was there. I was young, but I, there was not distractions, and I was a good or well behaved child. I would go anywhere with these people and just sit and listen to their stories. I have often said I must have been a very boring child because I just sat and listened to people talk. But they had, I have to go back and check just to make sure what I'm drawing a blank right now. But they had a refrigerator at one time in their big, pretty house, Yellow House. I remember one Sunday afternoon we walked over there because we were going to get some lemonade, cold lemonade. It had to been run by gas. See, I didn't know that stuff because I was little. I just wanted to lemonade.
Cooper McBrayer 14:43
Yeah, because there's, there was never really an electrical system on the Island.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 14:47
There was not. My grandfather had put in. I have it on my phone somewhere, put in gas lantern type things, very pretty lights, upstairs, outside of each bedroom, but he never got to complete it, because he got sick and passed away very quickly and, but they are still there. They're in the house and they're still there. And I asked my aunt one time, what were they there for? Because when we went to bed at night, we used a flashlight. And prior to that, we, you know, when we were downstairs, we just used kerosene lanterns. But that's what he was getting ready to do, was have, I guess, gas, or whatever they would have used. But I have taken pictures of those lamps, because they're very pretty. He was he tried to make everything as convenient for my grandmother as he could. That's one reason he moved that house. He bought about five acres around it. He wanted to make it easier for my grandmother to get, it wasn't very far from the house to the post office, but when they lived in the middle area that was a long walk, so he was always trying to do things for her to make it easier. But I had all kind of fun out of there. The toys from my grand, from my mother and my aunt, they still kept, they kept everything clean and neat over Portsmouth. They didn't waste things. So they would bring the toys down from the attic, and I got to play with all the toys they had. I had a little red table with a little red chair. Had another little stove, I had dishes, I had several dolls and stuffed animals, and I was very content to play by myself. I just always was, I don't know maybe that's weird, but I didn't need a whole lot of people. And I played paper dolls with my aunt, would play games with me, and she read to me a lot in the evening, when we turned on the kerosene lamp or lit it, and we'd play dominoes a lot. We had another thing that was like a bowling alley set, but it was a miniature. We'd put it down in the hall, and you would roll the little ball and see if you could get it into this container. And we played croquet, just things like that. I even to this day when, when I first get up, if I go outside and all you hear the birds, that's exactly what was in Portsmouth. But then it reminds me of that it was so quiet, it might have bothered a lot of people, but I thought it was wonderful. And to this day, I have that memory. I told my husband Craig that the other, the other day, we went outside and we're sitting for a minute and all you heard were the birds. And I said, "This reminds me of Portsmouth." It was just so quiet,
Cooper McBrayer 17:51
Just so quiet?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 17:52
Yes.
Cooper McBrayer 17:54
Did you hear the, did the ocean kind of sounds just, Well, there, were those just background, or did you only really hear that if you got close to the beach?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 18:01
We were far away from that, really, in terms of, of hearing it. Portsmouth, of course, is right on the ocean this side, behind the house was the sound side, but you still didn't hear that, really.
Cooper McBrayer 18:16
Okay.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 18:19
One time, my aunt and I went, walked all the way down to the beach, they wouldn't let me go and do anything by myself. And some one of the kids asked, "Well, did you go swimming?" I didn't go swimming. We looked for shells and I could go wading. But they were always afraid of something happening, and they had no rescue squad, of course, no firemen. They, the lifeguard station was not even commissioned or anything. There's no one there. They were afraid of fire, because when I was trying to show the children the kerosene lamp, they said, "Why didn't you use candles?" And I said, "Well, you have to remember, if something caught on fire, there was no fire, no firemen weren't coming. Coast Guard weren't coming." So they were very leery about things they did. Do you have some questions?
Cooper McBrayer 19:19
Yeah.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 19:19
I'm running out of-
Cooper McBrayer 19:21
No, you're okay. You're okay. Did, So were there any, were you kind of the only kid that got dropped off for the summer?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 19:29
Oh, well now, yes, yes. Now, see, my aunt would be with me in the mail boat. They never let me go by myself.
Cooper McBrayer 19:36
Gotcha.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 19:37
But yeah, I'd be the only child, one summer there was a young boy named Jakey Robinson who was there, but he was visiting somewhere else. Oh, we also had, they had turned the schoolhouse into an a house for someone to rent, because before the Park Service took it over, they were leasing some of the buildings there. So there was the artist, and he had a friend, and they had redone the fire, the schoolhouse until it got an art exhibit or something, I mean, it was really pretty. So we had those two people too. Yes, I was always by myself, but when they brought the mailbox over, mail boat over, you know, I was not just, yeah, I was good. The other boy that was there one summer, and I have a picture of him somewhere, he didn't come see me and I didn't go see him. They would have never let me out of their sight, as you can understand. They'd had some things that had happened, and my grandmother was very worried about anything happening. There was an older lady that lived on the island one time. She was a black lady who had lived there forever. Her name was Miss Rosa, and I'm not sure about her last name, I'd have to go look that up. But everyone knew the story that she was roasting oysters, and somehow her dress caught on fire, and she was burned badly, and she didn't, you know, a few days later she passed away, but everyone remembered that story so and one of the kids said, "Why didn't she just run get some water?" I said, "It wasn't like that," you know, she could have been several miles from water, you know. And we used rain water. We had cisterns. Just about everyone had one of those, and they would put cheese cloth over it to filter through any, you know, any debris, leaves or whatever that might get in there. But that's what we used. Was rainwater.
Cooper McBrayer 21:51
Okay, gotcha.Did, did you, so you got kind of an eye on to some of the day to day activities of the island, having to use kerosene lamps, any electronics being run by gas, essentially having their own cisterns and everything. Did you being, you know, just a kid, but being probably the youngest person on the island, did you, were you roped into helping out with the with the daily goings on, keeping everything tidy and everything a lot?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 22:25
Not really. I remember my grandmother swept the kitchen floor twice a day. She didn't ask me to do that. Now, I might have hung some clothes on the fig tree, and I did have to, at one time we had chickens. I had to go out in the morning and see if they had any eggs. But that was not a chore. That was fun. Nothing I did over there really was a chore to me. And I'd go out and get eggs and bring them in, and I was just, you know, they had a nice sized pen. I'm assuming that after my grandfather died, my my grandmother just couldn't take care of all that. I had an uncle. She had a son. My uncle, Buddy, his name was Ernest. But I think maybe after one of the last hurricanes or something, the chickens either washed away or they got, I'm not, I don't mean that, they just did away with the chickens, and so that little chore of mine was to go get the eggs, and that was fun. And I would hang clothes out on the fig line sometimes, but I really didn't have to do, I would go to the post office with my grandmother, and I'll talk to people, or I'd sit there, and there was a door against that wall, down that wall, and it opened out into a pathway and a cemetery. But I can remember sitting in that doorway, and I did wander into the post office area. This was also used as a store, and the post office area is over here, and my grandma looked me said, she said, "You have to get out of here. This is a restricted area, and you cannot be in here." And I said, "Okay," you know, I left. That's the only time I remember her saying anything in the way of, you know, behave. Kind of thought.
Cooper McBrayer 24:17
Okay, okay, thank you for that. So you've been part of the Friends of Portsmouth Island for a while. You've been taking care of, keeping, getting pictures around, finding old photographs and keeping them in upkeep. What are some of the challenges, I guess you feel like you've faced in trying to kind of work with the Friends of Portsmouth Island, or work on your own of trying to keep this history, the history of the island itself, kind of alive and well?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 24:49
Well, my, what happened was, when my grandmother passed away, she passed away in the Morehead City Hospital, and she had cancer. And then my uncle Buddy had a sudden heart attack. He and Aunt Dot were over here in Morehead visiting, and he had, I mean, he just had a heart attack and was gone. And so then that just left my aunt living in this big house by herself, and my mother and their oldest sister felt like she shouldn't stay over there by herself. I mean, most of the other houses were smaller. This is the biggest house over there to my knowledge, and she wasn't taking very good care of herself either, you know, and I'm sure she was extremely lonely. So anyway, they sold the house, and Aunt Dot came to Morehead to live for a while, but while she's on the island, she had a picture of someone, a big picture, because, you know, back then, they had those big pictures. I have several of them at my house, and two other people asked me who was in the picture, and I couldn't find out who was in the picture. I have my grandmother, my grandfather's picture, their wedding picture at my house, that is big. And then I have a picture of my grandmother had a little girl that passed away. I have her picture when she was little, and I have a picture of my grandmother's brother, and they're all in these big frames so, but this other lady, and a woman who knows a lot about Portsmouth too, she's the one who asked me, and I said, "Honestly, I can't remember," and I tried to find out. I went to several antique places, thinking maybe her name would be on the back of something. It had to be someone that was kin to my grandmother or my grandfather. But that was kind of, that was, that made me sad, because I couldn't find out who she was. And unfortunately, over the years, even at Homecomings, some people will try to take things from Portsmouth. When the park service took over their home, there is supposed to be, their furniture supposed to be, was supposed to be in Manteo but I called Manteo. That's why I was interested in what you said. They were not familiar with it. So then I found that somewhere in Hatteras, they keep older furniture like that. It's not in a totally sealed room, from what I understand, but it's a special room that is good for preserving older furniture like that. I have not taken the time to go over there because of all the things that have been going on in our everyday lives, but I would like to sometime do that. That to me, I think, is what bothered me the most, was not being able to, to, and my aunt, someone was taking a photo of her holding the picture. My aunt didn't say to the photographer who it was, so there has been no, no way to actually find, I did go to several antique places around here. They had nothing like that, so I don't know who it could have been, and I really haven't thought to go down to Core Banks Museum. I was helping Connie transcribe some of the tapes, but it was very difficult, and then other things came up, so we just disbanded that, Connie may be doing that, but I just, I have not listened to any tapes. I will be coming here to listen to the tapes-
Cooper McBrayer 28:31
Of course.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 28:32
-y'all have, because the quality was not good on what she had, she interviewed my mother and Marian Gray, my mother's very soft spoken, so you couldn't you had a hard time with the with the tapes, but she had a lot of information too.
Cooper McBrayer 28:47
Yeah, the, being unable to identify pictures because the people in them are just gone that you could have talked to, that is actually something I encountered a lot listening to the old tapes that were, that were made in some of Connie Mason's interviews. That's the whole interview. Is she has a book of photographs. She's like, "We're gonna go work through these. Can you tell me who this is, where this was on the island, what that building is," and some of them were very successful in that. "Oh, that's so, that's so, and so, who's Dan, who he would dance all the time at the the day, at the little dancing area, or that's this building, that's this angle of this building, that's right here." But that's, you know, even then, that was still a, so I see that problem, and I've seen it.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 29:41
And it's very, its sad. My uncle Buddy about him that he had dancing feet. He was quiet. This was the most quiet man you've ever met. But apparently when the music started, he was a great dancer, and I read that about him. Now some times people would come. And when my grandfather had a store, they had a man that came by. There he was playing the guitar, and Mama told me that he played the same song over and over. My grandfather said, "Bud, don't you know anything else," but that is, is sad. But people don't think about it. They don't think about writing anything on the back. I have one picture that they keep saying it was my grandfather's brother, but my mother had her mother's brother's name on the back of that picture. If she hadn't written his, written his name down, it would still be an argument as to whose brother it was. But I've told even my sisters. I said, "This is Mama's handwriting, and she wrote this down that this was Richard." But I, you know, I've hung them on the walls. You know, people can think and they're going into a museum or whatever. I don't care, because it's really, they're cumbersome, they're heavy, and it had to be their wedding day, because they were all dressed up, and they, they were very young looking. My grandfather had red, red hair and big blue eyes. He was very, he wasn't handsome when he was younger, because you know how red heads can be. They have a lot of waves in them sometimes. But he was, he got, he got more handsome as he got older, but he died very young, and he was a big man. My grandmother was tiny, tiny, tiny.
Cooper McBrayer 31:28
Great, great. So my next question is, who have been, I guess, some of the best helpers, or the best helps that you've had when you've been working with trying to keep this history kind of going, is it, would you say that the Friends of Portsmouth Island itself has been a huge help, or are there other people that you feel like have been helping you more?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 31:54
My older sister, oldest sister, Frances, and I, I think, have loved Portsmouth the most. Now we have another sister in between her and myself, and her name is Jo. She went as a child, Frances and Jo went as children, and they had cousins. My aunt Mabel, who was my mother's oldest sister, had children. Sometimes they'd be over there together. Well, then I came along and there was nobody to play with me, or cousins, you know, they were moved on other things by then. So I did play by myself. And then, unfortunately, my baby sister, everything had changed, and my aunt Dot was the only person that was still alive at that time. So Debbie, my baby sister, did not get to experience any of the things that we did, she loved Portsmouth. We have all loved Portsmouth, and are very proud of the house my grandfather built and all the things that he did, you know, trying to, the store and helping my grandmother with the post office. Not much is known about him, but I talk about him a lot, and I didn't even get to know the man, but he was a good man. Most of the people on Portsmouth were very sober citizens. Another family that had an impact on me was the Piggots. That was the only black family that lived on Portsmouth. But I know this sounds crazy. We didn't think, you know, we didn't think of them as black. For one thing, Miss Lizzie was great cook, and every time we went to visit her, she had cookies, and I loved to go see her. It was said that she would cut the women's hair on Portsmouth. She never cut my hair, but that was, and her brother, Henry. He just didn't think anything like that. They, they dressed neatly. Their home was neat. I mean, everything about them was neat. And everybody loved Henry because we only had for a number of years, a couple of men over there, and he just did for everybody, whatever he could, and just a sweet person. Then we'd go, we'd go blackberry picking. My aunt and I did. She would take me to other parts of the island. You know, we just walk and all that. That's how I found out, and I have a picture of it. Thank goodness of my mother and her as little, little girls at their old house, which was in the middle part of Portsmouth. And all of that is destroyed. It's all grown over, and a lot of it, when it floods, it gets wet. Because I did talk to the park service man in charge, Jeff West, who was very, very helpful in keeping Portsmouth alive. And. He has a sincere, I think, love for the island. I mean, he just, he just, was very helpful to all of us trying to do anything. And I asked him one day, I said, because I remembered my aunt took me over to their old house, and there isn't, there wasn't much left. But I asked him, I said, "Can anyone go over there now," and he said, he didn't think so. He said there wasn't much left, and then the water, when it when we had a hurricane coming, or something like that, the island would be underwater. So I never got to go back. But I do have a picture of my aunt and my mama in front of that house. But Portsmouth was bigger, Sheep Island down there is underwater. Yeah, it's not, I think I said Shell something. It's not that. It's Sheep Island.
Cooper McBrayer 35:45
Sheep Island is what you meant earlier-
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 35:47
Yes, yes.
Cooper McBrayer 35:48
Okay, got it.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 35:49
And then I want to say they called that other part where a lot of people lived, the middle community. I have it written on a map, but that's where a lot of people lived. And then up here around Portsmouth, they had a lot of people, but this was a very heavy populated area for Portsmouth at that time. But like I say, a lot of people like my my Uncle Joe, who was Annie's brother, he wanted to come to Morehead and open up another fish market and grocery so when they left, they didn't go back and, and they're buried right here in Morehead at Bay View Cemetery. But my grandmother loved it. She wasn't going anywhere until, you know, she got sick. But even if we had a hurricane, like I said, I was not over there during hurricanes, but on the side of the port, of the post office, they have marks and the date for different hurricanes that came, and some of them were very, very bad. You know, they would just, they would flood things. And people got tired of, of having to deal with that. And then, like I say, I guess during the First World War and the Second World War, the main thing that people did was fish and sell fish. And I mean, everybody made whatever they needed. There. They had scraps of wood from shipwrecks, smaller pieces of wood, because big trees did not grow on Portsmouth. So they just learned to be handy and make what they needed. And like that little desk, you know, that we had on display, they just, if a shipwreck, if a ship would wreck off the coast, whatever it had would, you know, float up to the sand on Portsmouth, and then people would go retrieve whatever they could use. And if anybody was left, you know, they would invite them to come back to the house. They didn't just take what was left. I remember one time, and my mother was not a real emotional person, but she was telling me about when the John O. Snow wrecked, and how the people were so cold, I'm assuming it was in the wintertime. I was just listening to her, and she started crying, and I thought, "Well, that really upset y'all." But the people were hungry and cold, and everyone took them into their homes. That's the way Portsmouth was. They just helped each other out and did what they could for each other. But I just, I know that was a traumatic experience for her, because my mother was not one to cry easily.
Cooper McBrayer 38:34
Okay, thank you for sharing.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 38:37
If I'm talking too much, tell me and you ask me what you need.
Cooper McBrayer 38:41
No, you are doing perfect right now. So what are you, what are you currently focusing on right now in regards to Portsmouth? I know you mentioned that you're thinking of sitting down and really getting to writing a book.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 38:58
Well, I feel like I need to, not, well. My family was, they were private people. Now you've got and the Salter, Ben Salter, my grandfather was his uncle, and they wrote a little book about Portsmouth. I just think I would like to write it from their point of view, kind of thing, and mine as a child, but there's lots of information out there, but it's nothing hardly on my family, my father, my grandfather's name was Theodore Salter, and my grandmother was Annie Dixon Salter. There are lots of Dixons, or were a lot of Dixons on Portsmouth, but we are not kin to the Dixons on Portsmouth. My Dixon came from someplace else. I know all that, but I don't know that I would share that with anybody, because my grandmother told me that, and she kept things close to her chest, and she just. Told me we were not kin to them. And I thought, okay, you know, I'm a little kid bouncing around, okay, but it stuck with me when I started doing more genealogy, genealogy on the Dixons, I couldn't find what I needed, and I was in here one day in the museum, and I talked to Dee, and he told me to look in another direction. I had been focusing on Carteret County. It wasn't they were from another county. And when Dee brought that to my attention, I thought, "That's why I couldn't find this." So Annie Dixon's people. Her mother was from Portsmouth, but her father was from off. So I feel like it wouldn't just be for me. It would be maybe to help some people understand this, because my grandmother was a very private person. She didn't go, and that's good to be a post Mistress. She could have told people either, "Did you know So and So got a love letter the other day?"
Cooper McBrayer 41:02
In charge of everybody's mail, that could have been the town gossip.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 41:05
"So and so got an overdue notice the other day. Y'all know that?" Not Annie very closed mouth, that's what I knew when she told me that we were from a different set of Dixons, that it was the truth, and that's just her nature. And Mama said her daddy was just the opposite. I don't know we were someplace one time. And Mama said, "You remind me so much of daddy." She said, "You will talk to anybody." I don't mean, I never even knew I was doing that, but she said, Daddy, her daddy would pull out to meet people that were coming to Portsmouth, tell them who he was, what about Portsmouth? She said he was always doing that, go and greet people. And she said, "You're just like that." I have another sister that says nothing, very just not. And she said, "You and her could be standing in line going to the bank tellers. By the time you got up to the teller, you'd know everybody in line and all about them," she said, "and Jo wouldn't have opened her mouth." I never thought of myself like that, but I guess I am. I do speak to people and I say, Hey, how you doing that kind of stuff? Now I'm not as probably as friendly or funny as I used to be before I lost my Patrick, and that's, that's him.
Cooper McBrayer 42:31
So I guess something I can also bring up that you've been recently doing here at the museum is you have been participating with the history exploration days, where the schools have been coming in here to the museum, and you've been head, I guess, of the, of the Portsmouth Island, 15 minute docent station. How are you- How is that going for you? I guess, I know we're, I know the museum's hitting the tail end. We've got maybe one or two more history exploration days, then that's it. But how did, how was that experience getting to kind of show the history to these kids who probably might have never even heard of the island before? Was, how was that experience for you?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 43:16
It was a really wonderful experience for me. I really appreciated Gracie calling me and asking me if I would mind being a docent. And I did enjoy it and the kids, I had to be careful what I said, because you only have like a little amount of time. Yeah, so I was trying to cover as much as I could. Now I used Ocracoke as an island example, but a lot of children, or a lot of kids, have not been to Ocracoke, so I don't know. But anyway, I would say Ocracoke is here, and then you have a body of water, and then this is Portsmouth. And then I would explain to them that no one lived there now, but it was being taken care of by the Park Service. And I would explain different things about the pictures I had brought, and it was a very enjoyable experience for me, and I hope they got something out of it. I had a tiny little hand pump, water hand pump, and a tiny, little old fashioned stove that my grandmother used. And I know oftentimes children relate to something they can see or feel or whatever. And I explained to them about an outhouse, and the only way they knew about an outhouse was from the movie Shrek. But I was real glad that Shrek had come out, because, and then some of the children would refer to it as being like a porta potty. And I said, "Yeah, but it never went anywhere," that was very enjoyable for me, and I hope they got something out of it.
Cooper McBrayer 44:47
Of course, gotcha. So my last kind of questions here are a bit more broad. If. You had the chance to, I guess, impart one piece of knowledge into the local people around here who were interested, one piece of Portsmouth history that would get caught, that would get taught everywhere, people would know. Is there any specific thing you'd want people to kind of know about the island, about its history, but its people?
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 45:23
That's what I was going to say. I think, I think it's very important to, for people to realize that it is there, and it is a village that is maintained by the Park Service and that you can visit it. It is a history example, and I refer back to Williamsburg a lot. Several children seem to have been to Williamsburg. And I said, "Well, that's what they try to do over at Portsmouth." They are preserving these buildings so that people can go back and see what it was like in, you know, back in the several years ago, several, 100 years ago, and that it was a thriving, wonderful place to live, because there was no crime, and everybody looked out for everybody else, and tried to help each other. And they were real people that lived there. You know, they, they had troubles, they had sorrows, like my grandmother losing her little girl. They had happy times, but they were very industrious people, because they made do with what they had. And I told the children, there was no waste on Portsmouth, because they just used everything they had.
Cooper McBrayer 46:41
Couldn't really afford to waste.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 46:42
They would either, I have two quilts that belong to my grandmother, every little scrap of whatever they made use of it. So I would like for people to not think of it as a ghost town. Unfortunately, sometimes it is referred to as that. We who are invested and love Portsmouth never refer to it as a ghost town. Those were real human beings that lived there and lived and tried to do the best they can with what they had. One thing I think is important, during World War Two, the Outer Banks, as a lot of people know, there were tons of shipwrecks out there, and there were a lot of German U-boats out there, all the men on Portsmouth that were still living there at that time, and my uncle Buddy was one of them, they would take their horses. They'd rotate and take their horses up and down the beach to see if any Germans were coming ashore, were there or whatever, you know. So as a community, different men would take different nights and go patrol that beach to make sure nothing was going on. So they had the same desires and fears and all that we have today, but it is a wealth of information. The buildings are the way they were built then, and that's, you know, the architecture and what they had to use. I think it's very important.
Cooper McBrayer 48:06
I agree, part of the reason I've been doing the research that I've been doing.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 48:11
I was really surprised when you said, I thought, "Oh, wow." Because usually, if anybody mentions Portsmouth, it is a hunter or a fisherman, you know, that has been over there. A lot of people just don't know about it.
Cooper McBrayer 48:24
It's an island. It's an Outer Banks Island community that, just in the modern era, has just no, people have stopped living there, and it's still, you know, a tourist destination, and still a park destination, but it is not nearly at the height of conversation that, let's say it was back when it was the biggest port along the, along the Outer Banks, the only way to really get in was Ocracoke inlet, and they were right there, and they were the ones who did all the lightering, you know. So back then, they were the talk of the town. They were, everybody knew, "Oh, you want to sail a boat through there, you have to go. You gotta go get the Portsmouth people to come lighter your cargo, or you're not going to make it through." Versus now, where it is, unfortunately, people just kind of, "Oh, yeah, that's just that ghost town that people used to live at." It's unfortunate, and I was, and I, I'm glad that I have been able to do the research I've been doing and been able to work on this capstone project I'm making, which I'm hoping for it to be a launching point, essentially, for people who are maybe just starting out wanting to do their research, want to do research on Portsmouth. And it's, you know, it's going to link it, links to here, links to the Friends of Portsmouth, links to Cape Lookout, and it's gonna have a couple of stories on on there to just kind of whet people's appetite and show them that, hey, this, this isn't just, oh, one of those places people used to live. It had a rich history, and it had, you know, people who, even in the modern era, like you, who were, spent time there and got to witness life on the island firsthand, and got, and still are working to make sure more people can be aware of its history and that it's not, just doesn't just disappear.
Barbara Gaskins-Eugene 50:10
Right, right. Also, people have said different things. I've said, "Well, I didn't know that." I think Dee told me that when I was a little girl, the island had cows and horses on it. They're roamed freely. And one day I was at the post office, and the horses were beautiful. Remember just running all over the place, and I asked my uncle Buddy, I said, "Can I ride one?" And he said, "They're too wild. Barbara, you can't, You can't ride them." And he said, "Go get me some corn," and I put it in a tin plate, he said, "And I'll show you." The horse came right up to the tin plate. There was suddenly a loud noise from somewhere, and that horse took off. Of course, I would not have been able to ride it, but a lot of people did not know that there was cows and horses on there at one time. But to my knowledge, the reason they were moved is it was eroding the soil and everything, and they were eating everything. That is one reason why. Now people, when you talk about Portsmouth, people just talk about mosquitoes. Well, see, there's nothing to stop them now from breeding and all that. So you may want to pick the spring or the fall to go visit. And in the wintertime, it's nice, it's cold, but it's nice, and just to visit the different houses. And when people left from there, I think a lot of people went Down East. They went to Davis and Harkers Island and Sea Level and Cedar Island, and they just didn't have anything to do, a way to earn a living, because at that time, like you say, the lightering had kind of stopped that inlet changes between Portsmouth and Ocracoke. And so they started going to Ocracoke or New Bern or other places where, though it didn't show so bad. But I try. I loved Portsmouth. And everyone that has a connection to or feelings, they just love Portsmouth. I guess maybe the simplicity of it, I think I tried to bring things to life for the children. I said, "You know, when you go into a room, you flip on the light switch." I said, "We couldn't do any of that." I said, "Can you imagine that?" I said, "Can you imagine life without television?" You know, I'm like, "I didn't miss the television." My aunt read books to me and helped me learn to read at an early age, so at night, after supper, we'd read, and we'd play like I say, dominoes or checkers or whatever. And I love to play paper dolls. I know nobody plays, they don't even know what paper dolls are half the time. But I really enjoyed it because I had a younger sister whom I love and miss very much. But when we played together in Morehead, she would wreck my little school house or school area where I had my dolls and all set up. She couldn't play paper dolls or Barbie dolls very long she got bored, and I said "I loved it, because I could set everything up just the way I wanted it, and nobody wrecked it." Now they could relate to that, and they thought that was funny, you know. They said, "Oh yeah, I've got a younger brother or younger sister." And one more girl said, "I dressed my brother up." And I'm like, "How old is he?" He may not appreciate that when he gets older, but I enjoyed it. Everybody was friendly, you know? And just, I remember on Sunday afternoon before my grandmother passed away in this house, this front room was a parlor area, and we had a settee on it. And grandmama didn't use that room often, but Marion Gray and Elma would come and visit, and we'd go in there and sit for several hours, but she didn't let you go in there just any time. And I think that's one of the ways that people lived back then, anywhere in the south, they had a hard time, and there wasn't a lot of industry. And so whatever they had, they took care of. Very self sufficient. Well, I want to thank you for sitting down and being able to talk to me today, Barbara. I really appreciate it, and I think you've shared a good amount, a very good amount of knowledge that I intend to use. So I just want to thank you for taking the time and being able to share a bit about your history and the history of the island and all that. Well thank you so much for asking me.
Cooper McBrayer 54:44
Of course, that will conclude on our interview.
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Duration
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54 minutes, 44 seconds