Oral History Interview

Below is an interview I conducted with my Grandmother, who I deem the family tradition-bearer. Her responses aim to prove exactly why Navarre Beach is considered home for my family.

“N” stands for Nene, what I call my Grandmother, Shirley Burt. I never learned how to say “Nana,” so I stuck with Nene. “B’ stands for myself, Brooks. Unfortunately my grandmother is a bit camera shy, which I feel impacted her answers. I kept the camera rolling after the interview officially “ended,” which produced 35 minutes of raw, personal footage. My grandmother’s personality truly shines in these minutes, but I do not have her approval to share.

Start Footage: Nene doesn’t want to be filmed. Eating Pringles.

N- You know….Addie will tell you she’s taking a picture and she’ll be videoing.

B- I’ll let you know when I’m recording. Sorry I had to do this right after you had eye surgery. Ready for me to start?

N- Yeah

B- So you know a little bit about this project that I’m doing, right?

N- Yes

B- It’s like a family project. The point of this is we are interviewing our family “tradition –bearer”, and I’m interviewing you. The title of my project is From the Strawberry Capital to Florida’s Best Kept Secret: How a Western Union Telegram Changed Family History. When I did research, I found that after generations, no one ever left Alabama, right? I’m trying to figure out why you and Dada were the first ones not only to move once, but twice. That’s the point of my project. So I’ll start easy on the questions. What’s your name, date of birth, and place of birth?

N- Shirley Etheridge Burt. Date of Birth: November 10, 1948. Place of Birth: Evergreen, Alabama.

B- Next question: Who were your parents, and what did they do for a living?

N- My dad was Donice Ray Etheridge and he worked at Monsanto in Pensacola and my mother was Margaret Louise Godwin and she worked at a textile plant.

B- What was Monsanto?

N- It was mostly a textile plant, too.

B- So they worked in textile plants?

N- Mhmmm

B- How about your extended family? Grandparents, aunts, uncles, did you live near them, and did you see them often?

N- My grandparents lived next door. I saw them daily. One of my aunts lived next door to my grandparents also because her husband was in the Air Force and she lived there while he was away.

B- So you saw them pretty often?

N- Yes

B- Would you say that Conecuh County was predominantly rural, especially in the mid twentieth century?

N- Yes

B- Do you remember when Interstate 65 split Conecuh County?

N- No

B- That was kind of irrelevant, I just thought it was interesting and may have some impact. Do you have any memories of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s?

N- No

B- Do you have any fond childhood memories that you would like to share?

N- Just with being with my family, most of my family was close. They always came home to Big Mama’s. Every holiday everybody was there.

B- Do any qualities of your relatives during your childhood stand out in your memory, maybe shaped who you are today?

N- Shakes head

B- Maybe like qualities you want, like staying close to family?

N- Well, I would just say the strong family ties that we have.

B- Alright. So we know that for a really long time, your family lived in Conecuh County. Did you, as a young adult, ever make it a point that you were going to move away or were you happy living where your were?

N- Well I Knew that I didn’t ever want to live there.

B- You did?

N- Yes, because there was nothing there.

B- There wasn’t anything there?

N- Yeah. So I knew I never wanted to live there.

B- Did you ever have any plan of where you were going?

N- I just kinda went with it.

B- So you weren’t ever upset that you never ended up back in Castleberry?

N- No

B- How did you meet Dada?

N- Through a friend.

B- Like a blind date?

N- No. It was just a friend of his and her mom worked with my mom and we just kinda went to the Evergreen Country Club, which is where a pool was, basically, that was about it. I met him there.

B- So y’all got married. Why did you choose to move to Brewton?

N- Because when Benny go out of the service, the Army, he was given a choice of working in Montgomery or Brewton at the Post Office and, for some reason, we just chose Brewton.

B- Would you say Brewton was a nicer place to live overall than Castleberry? Was it any different?

N- Brewton was definitely more affluent. It was better. There were stores, you could get groceries. If you lived in Castleberry you had to go to Brewton or Evergreen anyways. So, yes, I would say it was better.

B- What are some of the jobs that you held over the years?

N- Me? Mostly receptionist, mostly on doctor’s office.

B- What was it like to have your husband go off to war?

N- It was frightening because I was married in July and he left only after a year in the next September.

B- Would you say that one event shaped your lives forever?

N- Yes, it did.

B-Switching subjects, How might Brewton influenced Mom and Danny’s upbringing versus yours in Castleberry and Dada’s in Evergreen.

N- I would say they had more choices and they had a better school. They had all around better things. There was nothing in Conecuh County, it was very poor county.

B- About schools, Mom and Danny were the first to go to college. How did you feel about this? Did you ever feel that not having a degree ever held you back?

N- Tanya and Danny going to school was a top priority. Because Benny probably would have gone to school if he was already enrolled and he would not have been drafted. Once you’re drafted, you can’t enroll or they’ll draft you. I wanted Danny and Tanya to have an education. They needed to be able to pursue whatever they wanted to do.

B- Your grandfather, PJ Godwin, grew up on a farm with boarders in the house to make ends meet according to a 1910 Census. What do you think caused such a dramatic change in lifestyle? Two generations later, there is no farming involved.

N- Well, I don’t remember any of that. I just remember him being a county commissioner. My grandfather didn’t work. I don’t know what the translation was. He had a great job. He was elected more than once. He was good at his job and popular.

B- Did you raise Mom and Danny any differently than you were raised?

N- Well I would say no.

B- Not too long after mom went to Auburn, you and Dada moved to the beach, but your lives were still in Brewton. Why did you do this move, and can you describe it?

N- We both still worked in Brewton. Danny was in California and when Tanya left for Auburn we just decided that we didn’t want to have a big house and that we didn’t want to retire in Brewton. We’d rather retire somewhere else. Just on a whim, a friend of ours, Owen Brake and Bonnie Brake, who was a teacher at T.R. Miller, were building a house in Navarre, which today is the Walker’s house. They asked us to come to Navarre since they were going to commute back and forth. We decided to just go look. We went to look and fell in love and decide that was it.

B- So friendships have always played a big role in your life, haven’t they?

N- Yes, they have. I had known the Brake’s probably twenty years, too.

B- My next question was why Navarre? Did it have any significance? But it was because friends lived there.

N- No, we had always vacationed in Destin. Always. The last couple times we were in Destin, the traffic had become too congested. We migrated toward Navarre. A lot of Brewton people were in Navarre. There used to be a KOA campground at the very end and a lot of the doctors had trailers there. A lot of them lived there. 87 made it easy to get to Brewton.

B- What was Navarre like in 1992? Has it changed any?

N- Oh yeah. There was no grocery store. Now we have Publix. It’s gotten bigger.

B- How have the hurricanes treated you over the years?

N- Not bad, only two major ones. In twenty-four years, so I think I’m doing pretty good.

B- Despite the heightened tourism, Santa Rosa County has remained predominantly rural. Did Navarre ever seem like another Castleberry, just on the beach?

N- In a way. There were no stores. Even today, you have to leave the island to go to the store. You still have to go to Pensacola or Fort Walton to shop. So yes, but it is beautiful.

B- What keeps you in Navarre?

N- I would say The Best Kept Secret. The beauty. The beach. The calm and quiet. And my friends.

B- Would you say that Navarre has become the hub of our family, much like Conecuh County was the Etheridge family hub?

N- Yes

B- The last question, which I hope is the easiest. I’m your favorite grandchild, right?

N- You’re my favorite OLDEST grandchild.

B- Thank you, love you.

N- Love you!

Smithsonian Questions

● How does your tradition-bearer’s story relate to your community in both the present and the past? How does it relate to you? My grandmother continuously maintained themes of friendship and compassion, regardless of setting. This mentality has been with her since the mid twentieth century and reflects her choice of place of living as well as her day-to-day activities. I hope this philosophy continues to prove itself through me, as a mentality of kindness reveals a home in nearly every situation.

● How did your perception of community history change, from before the interview to now? After the familial interview as well as the scholarly interview, I have realized how unique the community of Navarre Beach is. Very few tourist dominated areas maintain a continuous feeling of belonging and home like Navarre does. I realize now that I am as important to the area that I call home as anyone else that may live there.

● How did this project inspire you to learn more about your community? This project has encouraged me to become more aware of the unique culture that exists in Navarre Beach. I now feel like a member of this community and I share a vested interest in the area’s ever-changing persona. Realizing my surroundings in Navarre unveil the secret undocumented history of an area emphasizing an ever-improving tourist interest.

● What were some of the challenges you faced during this project? What could you do differently in your next oral history interview? If I redid the project, I would have liked to interview my grandmother’s neighbors, many of whom I have known since birth. In a tourist community, very few residents are native. I would like to know why others moved to the same area as my grandparents.

● If the roles were reversed and you became the tradition-bearer, what stories would you like to tell? I would reminisce on childhood memories at Navarre Beach. As I recounted in other sections of the Routes & Roots Project, I would tell tales of walking along the ocean, of collection sea shells, of driving my grandfather in his precious ’56 Bel Air, of watching the Pensacola Blue Angles, and volumes of memories spent with my family.

Above is a recording of what my grandmother talked about after the official interview was over. Though some topics may not be understandable for listeners, I feel that this addition paints a clearer picture of my grandmother. She is not the dry “NO” or “YES” responses perceived in the interview. I hope you enjoy her stories.