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NewslettersGay Fish Co. founder's first lesson: to work hard from "can see" to "can't see"
charley@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5512
Charging 50 cents for a glimpse of a sea cow on St. Helena Island in the 1940s and working from “can see to can’t see” were a way of life for the six children of the late Hilda Smith Gay and John “Buster” Henry Gay Sr.
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Wonderful memories, family traditions, including caring for family and friends through good and bad times, linger since the 60 years the Buster Gay family lived on St. Helena Island.
“When I was real little, I used to think it was wonderful to hear the headers sing the old spirituals as they were heading shrimp,” said Hilda Gay Upton, the only daughter of Hilda and Buster, who died in 1980. “It was beautiful.”
“I remember daddy catching a sea cow one time and (brothers) Richard, Charles and me charged people 50 cents to see it.
“We had to make our own fun. We rode horses, swam all the time and played ball. Our mother always had a big community fall festival in our yard where she let us bob for apples, and we played games.”
The fresh, sweet smell of the ocean lingered throughout the concrete block building as Charles recently unloaded a delivery of fresh white fall shrimp. Brown shrimp are sought in the summer, white row shrimp in the spring. “When the brown shrimp go away, then the white shrimp that hatched in the spring come back in the fall,” Charles said.
Due to fluctuations of such a seasonal business, Buster taught his children to find other ways of supporting themselves between seasons. “Daddy would shrimp in the summer and oyster in the winter,” said Charles, who worked for the Port of Port Royal for nine years in the 1980s.
Off-season work
Buster and Hilda ran the concessions at Burckmeyer Beach, and Buster was the only captain who was allowed to shuttle groceries and people to the nudist colony on Cat Island, Robert recalled, laughing.
In the winters, the family ran a landscaping business planting Palmetto trees for $50 each on Fripp Island and clearing land at Burckmeyer Beach. One winter was spent building houses in Port Royal.
“He (Buster) said, ‘Don’t ever rely just on shrimping for a living,’ ” said Robert, who runs the shrimp boat, “The Tipsey,” crabs, fishes and does carpentry work in the off seasons.
One summer, Robert was allowed to bag groceries at the Colonial Grocery store, where the Piggly Wiggly is now, at Boundary and Ribaut Road, and Hilda spent the summer of 1956 working at the Hunting Island bathhouse, which has been washed out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Crabs were sent to market in Maryland, and the majority of the shrimp they caught were shipped to Thunderbolt, Ga. Even today, individuals buy thousands of pounds of shrimp to take home to friends and neighbors.
“At one time, every one of us was working for daddy,” Charles said.
While Buster looked out for his family, he also looked out for extended relatives, friends and neighbors. “He made a place for people. He would move his stuff and put a bed out for people to stay with us,” said Robert.
Buster always made sure he had work for the family. “He didn’t want us to leave, so he made sure everybody had houses, and he’d always tell us, ‘There’s enough to do around here,’ ” Robert said. Buster’s daughter-in-law, Fostine Woods Gay, John’s wife, helped the elder Hilda to run the retail market at both docks, and both her sons, Mike and Tommy, worked on and captained boats.
The family patriarch enjoyed scaring the children with his tales of a ghost lady dressed in black who walked at night around the railway that still is shared with Gay family members and friends. “I think he made that up just to keep us out of the darkness,” said Robert.
Driving at early ages was common for the children. Hilda remembers at age 11, she drove her daddy’s late model 1940s pickup with benches down a dirt Seaside Road to pick up people who had jobs deheading shrimp. Robert recalls driving into Burton to buy 300-pound blocks of ice when he was 14.
Taking to the ocean
Before Gay Fish Co. was born, Buster worked as a painter and later became the head civil service electrician on Parris Island. When he discovered a weekend bounty of shrimp and fish could bring in more money than he made in a month, he decided to turn to the ocean for his living.
In 1948, he moved the family from a handmade block house with hardwood floors he had built on Lady’s Island to a fish camp house near today’s Gay Seafood Co. building off Sea Island Parkway.
The couple raised six children — John Henry Gay Jr., who died in 2007; Richard Hamilton Gay, of Oklahoma; Hilda Naomi Gay Upton; Charles Andrew Gay; Robert George Gay; and William Harry Gay — all who worked in the business together. John left to farm, Richard left to do missions work and William owns Port Royal Seafood, which has been relocated to Seaside Road on St. Helena Island.
Upon first moving into the fish camp house on St. Helena Island, Charles recalls seeing cracks in the floors and having no indoor plumbing. “The only heat we had was two propane space heaters, and he would cut them off at night.
Shortly after moving in, plumbing was installed. “Sometimes we would wake up, and the commode would be frozen,” Charles said. But the family also fondly remembers nights spent catching the cool, ocean summer breezes that came across the porch, a favorite place for sleeping before air conditioning, especially for guests.
Each child worked in the packing houses and on the boats. One of Charles’ first jobs was nailing shrimp boxes together. “That was fun,” he said. “I was small, and I got to use a hammer.”
The children graduated to deheading shrimp, packing shrimp and unloading the boats. When they got old enough, each of the men captained a boat. They left the docks at 3 or 4 a.m. and worked until dark. When they asked, “Daddy, when are we going to be done?” He’d reply, “From can see (daylight) to can’t see (dark),’ ” recalled Charles, who, with younger brother Robert and sister Hilda, continues to run the fish company.
Charles can be found working on the docks now, but as a teen, he ran three boats during high school. Before GPS systems and depth finders, the boys learned to measure the water using a string with knots tied along it. “We’d wind it up and throw it out the boat; and when you pulled it up, you’d see the knots at the bottom and know how deep the water was,” Charles said.
Robert remembers times when nets would get caught on a snag at low tide. “I learned to take your time and let the nets come up with the tide,” said Robert, who now runs “The Tipsy,” named after his father’s first boat.
Hilda married Bob Upton Sr., a Lands End native, who had served as a quartermaster in the U.S. Coast Guard. Upton began his shrimping career as captain of the “Miss Lady’s Island” as soon as they were married after she graduated from Beaufort High School in 1959. “My husband said he was blessed to be able to see the sun rise every morning and set in the evening. It is one of the most beautiful sights when you leave in the dark … there is something breathtaking about it,” Hilda said.
Still selling fresh fish
Today’s Gay Fish Co. retail market building was originally a screened-in building where island women shucked oysters. Curtains fashioned out of croaker sacks and shrimp nets covered the front windows and shrimp house that surround Charles’ tiny office.
A wall of history of the docks at the retail business illustrates some of the 60 years of stories, including one of Buster’s first boat, “The Tepzi” (pronounced tipsy). “It was really tender, when you would step on it; it would lean,” Charles said of the boat.
Pictures of the docks crowded with shrimp boats, before being wiped out in 1959 by Hurricane Gracie, show the prosperity of the shrimping industry. In a 1944 portrait, “Capt. Buster” holds fish, a cigarette and a huge smile.
Paintings on the wall of the office depict historical places in Beaufort, such as The Shack Drive In. Proud fishermen hold extremely large fish, and oversized shrimp are preserved in jars above the ingredients needed to cook the seafood for sale.
Fish fresh from the sea — grouper, mahi-mahi, sea scallops, flounder fillets, lump crab meat and, of course, shrimp — are iced and ready for sale in white fiberglass bins against the aqua blue counter tops and white walls.
The docks have been featured on television and in the movies for years. The Travel Channel interviewed Charles about cooking Frogmore Stew four years ago. More pictures testify to visits by celebrities such as Tom Hanks, who during the filming of “Forrest Gump,” was dropped off regularly in a limousine on the bumpy dirt road that leads to the docks and picked up after filming the shrimp boat scenes.
“They bought 4,000 pounds of shrimp from me for that scene where they dropped the shrimp on the deck after the hurricane,” said Charles of the scene where Gary Sinise (Lt. Dan Taylor) and Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump were the only surviving, successful shrimpers following a hurricane.
Thirty years ago, heeding her father’s advice, Hilda opened The Shrimp Shack just across the street from the fish company. Dishes she learned to cook from her mother and the late Martha Jenkins, who helped to raise the children, are served. In his later years, the restaurant became a favorite spot for Buster to eat and to chat with longtime friends. It has been discovered by celebrities such as Robert Duvall and the cast of “The Big Chill.” Food writers from The New York Times, Saveur, Gourmet and Bon Appetite magazines gave positive reviews.
The family is commemorating the 60th anniversary with T-shirts depicting a shrimp boat, named “Buster and Hilda.”
“It is good to have family working together,” said Robert. “Everybody helps each other out.”
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