Southern exposure

If air conditioning had been available in the 1940s, it’s just possible we would not have come looking in Bluffton for a place on the Maye River, where life moved at a more placid pace and, more importantly, was cooler than in Savannah’s debilitating summer heat.

Today, in our Lowcountry summer life, air conditioning is taken for granted.
Years ago, we somehow managed home temperatures in the summer. Not by the mechanical means of today, we managed by old-fashioned tried and true adjustments.

We had practical means of combating heat. A perfect example of southern defense against the extreme temperatures of July and August is the Church of the Cross on Calhoun Street in Bluffton. When the church vestry in the early 1800s advertised in a Charleston, SC newspaper for someone to design and build a church up off the ground on brick to seat 500 and not cost over $5,000, they didn’t mention they wanted the design to have cross ventilation or a southern exposure. That was understood.

The church they built so long ago sits lengthwise on the high bluff overlooking the Maye River. For each window in the main body of this gothic design, there is a matching window on the opposite wall, so that when the windows were thrown open to the meekest of breezes coming off the river, the air would flow straight through.

This was a summer church meant for summer people who had come to Bluffton from inland, where the temperatures hovered at least ten degrees hotter, and from Savannah, whose busy streets and brick buildings threw off heat even after the sun had long set.

Fortunately, the church has since been blessed with a central air conditioning system so that the methods of cooling 19th-century style are now only a matter of historical interest to the active year-round congregation of today.

But, in the 1940s, we bent our lives to the heat. We walked slower. We talked slower. We closed windows and pulled down shades on the east side of the house in the morning and reversed the order in the afternoon to cheat the sun’s blasting heat from invading. Only in the cool of an evening or after a cleansing thunderstorm were all the shades and blinds opened.

In Savannah, during summer months, stores closed at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, except for the first Saturday of the month. Only a few restaurants and Gottlieb’s Bakery were open on Sundays.

After church, we took time off to rest, to take to the river, the ocean and the beach to relax and concentrate on staying cool. The hours between one and three, when it was simply too hot to move around, were lazier than most.

If you were lucky, as soon as school was out for summer vacation, you managed to leave the city. Some families escaped the heat in the mountains of North Carolina, but most stayed near home. The men wanted to be able to drive into the city in the mornings and return in the evening to share the relative coolness of their summer cottage.

Tybee Island became popular because it was only 18 miles from Savannah, an easy commute. The ocean breezes even on the hottest of days were a delight as refugees from the heat sat on the wide porches with the ubiquitous swings and rocking chairs, never far from the rustle of palm trees and soft murmur of incoming breakers onto the beach.

Some of our friends bought property south of Savannah, down at Pine Harbor, Shellman’s, and Yellow Bluff, where tannin tainted the rivers the color of coffee. Cousin Henry, an avid fisherman, went to South Carolina and bought a riverfront lot down the road from Camp St Mary’s, where the Okatie River meets the Colleton.

We tried them all. None compared to Bluffton.

We wanted a place of our own, and trying to find something in those war years of the mid-1940s was difficult, to say the least. Gas was rationed, but as soon as we collected enough coupons, we were off every chance we got.

Surely, there was a place for us so we would no longer be dependent on the kindness of friends or worry about the dubious summer rental market.

Houses for sale were out of the question. With the war effort, every available space was occupied. We looked for land. And we had special needs. Mama couldn’t swim. She never had, and she had no intention of ever learning.

Swimming was simply not a talent Mama aspired to. We would need a place with a beach.

Not on the ocean, mind you. She didn’t care a thing about being near the ocean. She wanted a nice, quiet river, a gentle river. No swift currents or big fish. She did like to catch crab, and until Mama was in her 80s, she rowed our bateau for Daddy to throw a shrimp net. She never left to go on the river without her life preserver cushion or forgot to remind us to take ours.

Daddy, on the other hand, was a typical Aquarian. Loved the water, in it, on or near it, any kind of water, fresh or salt.

He did insist on the land being high ground. His father had told him to always buy land that sat high, and he was most positive about not buying any land that looked as though it might be susceptible to flooding.

Their last consideration was that they wanted their property to face South. They knew of the prevailing breezes from the ocean, and again, in those days of no air conditioning, this was most important, no matter how much cross ventilation you designed.

We found a real estate broker in Bluffton. Mrs. Colcock, who knew everything and everybody and would be most surprised to learn that she was wrong about anything. She led us all over God’s earth. She simply could not understand us. She showed us a lot that faced South with a beach and on deep water. She showed it to us at high tide. When we went back later at low tide to check what we suspected, what we saw was an expanse of mud for a beach, and not a speck of water to be found. Then, there were the lots she showed us where the channel ran close and swift to a high bluff, a bargain at ten dollars a front foot, $600 for a 60-foot lot. There was no beach at all, and the property faced due West, sure to be sweltering in the afternoons when the sun began to set.

discouraging.

Finally, one afternoon, she drove us over a rickety wooden bridge onto Myrtle Island. The half-sand, half-crushed oyster shell excuse for a road ended in a circle at the tip of the island. We parked the car and walked to the edge of the bluff. There was no road here, only an overgrown path where cars had beaten down the underbrush, evidence of what we later found to be a frequently used lovers’ lane.

“Except for the end of this island, which is $4,000, there is only one lot available for sale,” said Mrs. Colcock.

When Mama heard $4,000, I thought she was going to pass out. Our custom-built three-bedroom brick house in Savannah had cost $6,300. And Daddy had just happily paid off the FHA loan. Mama wasn’t too excited about this property anyway. There was only one house at this end of the island, and it wasn’t close. There was no electricity available. There was no water. We’d have to dig a well. You couldn’t even really tell one end of the property from the other.

But, Daddy persevered. He loved it.

The lot was reasonable, priced under $2,000, and had 200 front feet on the Maye River.

Mrs. Colcock conveniently forgot to mention the lot was pie-shaped and went to 40 feet at the back.

You couldn’t see much. The lot was completely wooded, a tangle of vines.

What we did see was a beautiful beach, yellow sand, wide and slanting carefully to a slow-moving river, green and clear in the winter cold.

Mama would have no trouble sitting on the beach. And there was a high bluff. A fact that really pleased Daddy.

We ignored the fact that the property faced almost due North.

We bought that lot.

No cooling breezes in summer. Frigid winds in winter. Somehow, we didn’t care.

We were on the River Maye.

Annelore Harrell’s journey is a tapestry woven with fascinating experiences and extraordinary accomplishments. Even at 92 in 2025, Annelore’s energy and zest for life continue to inspire. Annelore Harrell’s story is a testament to living with passion, resilience, and an unquenchable thirst for adventure.