St. Marys, Georgia
Delightful weekend visiting St. Marys, Georgia to baptize Virginia Carolyn Boyle, daughter of Forbes & Emily Cramer Boyle and granddaughter of Bill & Carolyn Cramer. We had room 300 at the Spencer Inn B&B, third floor in this comfortable 1792 hotel with a modern elevator and scrumptious breakfast.
Sunday morning dawned threatening stormy, windy and chilly, so the service, which was to have been in a lovely pavilion on the river, was moved inside. Looking out our room window at a cloudy sky over the trees and above the cross atop the Roman Catholic Church across the street.
Sunday afternoon was beautiful and we toured the town, basically from one end to the other, one side to the other, visited the open 24/7 chapel of Christ Episcopal Church and chatted with a parishioner who was there practicing her Ash Wednesday reading. From there we wandered round the town’s old cemetery, old graves including a sea captain born in London in the 1700s, Civil War grave markers, and flags and VFW medals. Some graves marking death from yellow fever.
Many fascinating old tombstones, snapped a couple of sad ones for young people who died in 1835, a hundred years before my birth.
Exhausted from a busy day and walking, we had a late Sunday afternoon nap, woke six o’clock Sunday evening and on the spur of the moment had supper at St. Marys Seafood, a cafe on the outskirts of town.
It was like our Hunt’s Oyster Bar but larger and tidier. Packed with diners, excellent seafood to our Southern tastes.
St. Marys with no Apostrophe, Georgia is reminiscent of Apalachicola to us who lived there fourteen years, 1984-1998. Small riverfront town with what appeared to be working boats docked, seems it could have been a fishing village at some time in its history. Saw a shrimp boat, but no oyster boats, and we were told that the large oysters served to us at St. Marys Seafood were from Pensacola.
We saw older homes with raised construction. Marsh and mudflats, the town is low and a major hurricane, such as September 1813 that landed with a 19 foot storm surge, and others of record* could pose significant flood threat and force mandatory evacuation; so what else is new, and unlike earlier generations we live in an age of weather satellites and advance notice.
TW+
Some pics are proofs, copyright Plantation Photography, St Simons Island, GA and Amelia Island, GA, who took wonderful photos. Used with apologies, will be deleted if requested.