Matilda Middleton greets visitors to St. Helena Island on her front porch.
Photograph by Brooks Walker In Search of the Authentic, On the Road
By Andrew Nelson
Coasting Along the Low Country
"If you want to hear a story," said a man on St. Helena, one of South Carolina's Low Country islands, "go to Storyteller Road." So, following his directions, I found my way to the home of Matilda Middleton, a 95-year-old Gullah woman descended from the slaves who once toiled in the coastal rice plantations around here. While waiting to meet "Mama Tilda," as the community matriarch is known, I thought about the road that brought me: Highway 17.
"Hello," someone called from the porch. It was Mama Tilda. She invited me in, past the front gate and onto her porch, where we shook hands and sat down. Her accent was distinctive; she spoke in a patois that reached back to West Africa. The view from the porch, she told me, had not changed much since she moved here in 1934. Storyteller Road was paved now, but the live oak branches still hung overhead and the bugs still batted at the screen door.
I'd hoped to hear a story from Mama Tilda about hard times and rich rewards, but she preferred to talk about flowers, imparting some good advice: "Most people get their flowers when they die," she said. "What good are they then? I want my flowers when I'm alive." | |
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