Islander of the Week is William Odell Spain

Courtesy of New Bern Sun Journal

 What a fitting tribute for William Odell Spain to be our very first Islander of the Week.  I had the pleasure of visiting with Cap'n Dell on July 4th and very much enjoyed listening to his stories.  A gifted storyteller, Odell has researched and recorded the many places, people, and events about Goose Creek Island.  He has prodded around old cemeteries and homeplaces on the island to gather needed information for his recounts and recollections of our island history.

Born in 1931 to Charles and Annie Spain of Hobucken, Odell left Goose Creek Island to serve in the US Coast Guard. After his military tenure, he returned home to be an oysterman and commercial fisherman until his retirement years ago.  At the helm of retired life, Odell set about the task to record our island history.  From 1994 to 2000, he wrote a weekly column for the Pamlico News about the island.  Shortly after in 2002, he compiled those stories and histories into the book Cap'n Dell's Stories and The Spain's of Eastern North Carolina.

Odell is an accomplished musician and has participated in many of the island produced homecoming plays. However, it his desire to capture and preserve the oral histories of Goose Creek Island for future generations.  David Cecelski, coastal author and historian had the opportunity to interview Odell for project with the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina back in 1998.  In an newspaper interview with the Havelock News, Cecelski summed up his experience interviewing Odell Spain:

"He lived in a once healthy and blossoming fishing community. His whole fishing world is gone now. There’s no oysters. We drove around an entire day, and he showed me the foundations of homes no longer there. It’s a ghost town. Yet he remembers everything. He’s the only one that remembers. And, because he’s willing to share that with me, it will be remembered, somehow." Cecelski says Odell Spain, and the hundreds of other living links to the past are his inspiration for continuing his studies as well as teaching." (The Havelock News, November 13, 2002)


So when Odell learned about the Goose Creek Island Journal and the Goose Creek Island Album on Facebook, he eagerly started sharing his memories of living on Goose Creek Island.

GCIJ:  You have a gift of telling stories from our island past.  What encouraged you to start recording your stories?
WOS:  In Hobucken, there were five stores from where the pavement ends all the way to the Hobucken Marina, not counting the marina.  The Marina wasn't there when I was growing up.  When you visited a store, there was always sure to be somebody in there telling about something that had happened or what not.  Also, when we were out in the sound working, there were things that happened or other fishermen telling stories.  I just happened to remember them and felt they needed to be told. Without retelling or recording our history, our younger folks won't be able to understand what a great place Goose Creek Island is.
 
GCIJ:  Do you have a special place on the island that you love to visit?
WOS: I don't have any particular place that I have to visit.  I just love it when I cross over the bridge and can say I am home.  All of Goose Creek Island is special.


GCIJ:  What is your favorite traditional Goose Creek Island food?
WOS: I'd have to say seafood.  All of it.  Donna is going to cook some shrimp today.  Yesterday I had fish.

GCIJ:  How did you learn to play the guitar?
WOS:  I taught myself.  Miss Beatrice Bateman who lived "through the swamp" could play the guitar.  Linwood Ireland was inspired by Miss Beatrice and wanted to play.  She taught him and of course we all wanted to play then.  I was 10 years old and told Moma that I wanted a guitar.  So for $4.49, she ordered me one from the Sears Roebuck catalog.  Once I got that guitar, I would go to Linwood's house and I would sit on the porch with him and follow what he was doing.  I learned by listening and trying, but I never received any formal teaching.  It just evolved from the desire to want to play.

GCIJ:  You sang a song a few years back that has become your signature song. Would you like to tell us the name?
WOS:  The song is called Wore Out.  The last time I sang it at the homecoming play, I received a huge standing ovation and applause.  On that note, my professional musical career began in 1950, when me and Linwood played for the Hobucken High School graduation square dance.  That was the first "gig" I had playing the guitar.

GCIJ:  I want to make sure that I get a copy of your book, Capn Dell's Stories. Can I buy one from you today?
WOS:  I have a couple of copies left.  They sell for $19.95, but if you give me $20, I'll throw in an autograph for you! (laughing)

And with a $20 bill, I got a autographed copy of Cap'n Dell's Stories. It says 07-04-2012, William O. Spain, To Tina, Smooth Sailing to my Island folks.