Contents
Story
Decoys
Credits
🟡 MODERATE RESEARCH VOLUME
OWNERS
Sterling Robinson
early 50s
OTHER ASSOCIATIONS
Joyce Lewis Mason
LOCATION
Southern Core Banks–Point of Grass–south edge of then Drum inlet
Story
do you know more? contact me.
STERLING ROBINSON CAMP
Interview with Joyce Lewis Mason
5-27-21
Ms Mason, soon to be 90, shared her memory of the family camp alongside Drum Inlet. Sterling Robinson built the camp in the 50’s from materials from the tear-down of the Atlantic Air Station. Ms Mason believes that he likely had no ownership of the land where the small, simple but beloved camp served the family.
Her photo of the camp taken in 1961 shows Mason, Jr. (back let–who died in an accident at 19 years while home visiting from college), Olivia Joyce Mason is in the middle back (she died at 48 from cancer), Susan Cox Willis was back right (she worked at the court house), front left was Cynthia (Cindy) Mason, and Angela Mason-front right.
Every year, the family would purchase an inexpensive and sacrificial auto for the year on the banks. She remembers riding on the running boards, or adults wanting to fish on the beach riding and jumping off when there to avoid stopping the motion of the car in sand.
The camp was three rooms with bedrooms on each end and the kitchen and sitting room in between. One bedroom window faced ocean and one the sound–everyone wanted to sleep by the window to catch the breeze on ho nights. The windows were small. Nearby were two mounds of dredged sand they called the ’bird rookeries”. Daughter Cindy remembers the heat of the sand and running from one tide pool to another to save their soles.
Their camp was close along the shore of Drum Inlet and was later washed away and lost in a storm. The Coast Guard Station was south and further in from them and there was, at the time, one other camp between them snd the station. It was owned by a lady from Atlantic.
Sterling transported seafood to New Bern and Kinston from the area. The camp was used as a getaway for the family.
Credits
- Other references within text