“Under The Sycamore Trees of Stoney”

In 1973, on the north end of Hilton Head Island, there was a small neighborhood people called Stoney. Not Stoney Village in everyday conversation. Just Stoney. If you were from there, you didn’t have to explain it. Everybody already knew.

Stoney was a tight-knit Black community shaded by tall sycamore trees and stitched together by sandy paths, front porches and a deep sense of respect. It was the kind of place where elders were honored, children were watched over by more than just their own parents, and if somebody needed something, help showed up without a lot of talk.

In 1973, a little white boy named Wally Palmer started kindergarten at Hilton Head Elementary.

His parents were artists, creative people with busy lives and a lot going on. But during those school days and long afternoons, it wasn’t just home shaping him. It was Stoney.

Ms. Bertha Perry was the head cook at Hilton Head Elementary. She lived right behind the school and just behind Mr. Arthur Frazier’s store. After school, young Wally would walk with her to her house.

There was only one rule: he had to check in every so often so she knew where he was.

As soon as he checked in, most days he was already headed toward Mr. Frazier’s store. Mr. Arthur Frazier had a way about him. The old locals would step inside, spot that little boy with a broom and a wide grin, and ask with a chuckle, “Who’s the white boy with the smile?”

Mr. Frazier would laugh and say, “That’s one of my employees. Best floor sweeper I’ve got.”

Wally took that job seriously. For sweeping those floors, he earned a grape soda and a pack of crackers. To a kindergartener, that was treasure.

Sometimes he would sit on the front porch beside Mr. Frazier, his legs barely long enough to touch the ground, listening to story after story. Mr. Frazier could make that child laugh so hard he could hardly breathe, the kind of laugh that left your stomach sore and your eyes watering.

If he wasn’t at the store, he was across the street in a vacant lot playing football with the older boys. That dusty patch of ground was their stadium. The older boys always wanted to tackle the younger ones, and Wally learned quickly how to cut, run and keep his feet. Years later he would say that was probably why he became a running back. Stoney taught him how to move.

Those boys were his first real friends. The Stewart family was woven into the heart of that neighborhood: Derald Stewart, his sister Charlie Stewart, Maurice Williams, Robert Chaneyfield and others who filled those afternoons with laughter and competition. Leslie Gooding was there too, and many of them still live on the island today.

Next to Mr. Frazier’s store sat an old broken-down school bus. To adults it was junk. To those children it was a fort, a hideout, a spaceship, whatever their imaginations needed that day.

Behind Ms. Perry’s house stood a great sycamore tree, one of the towering trees Stoney is known for. Wally climbed high into its branches with the neighborhood kids, looking out over a world that felt both big and safe all at once.

At Hilton Head Elementary, Mr. Isaac Wilborn was the principal. His presence at the school carried weight. He was respected, steady and central to the lives of the children who walked those halls each day. While Stoney shaped Wally after school, Mr. Wilborn helped shape the tone and discipline of the school itself.

Wally also remembered crying in Ms. Perry’s arms when he was small. She held him close like he was her own. In a season when his parents were stretched thin, she gave him something steady and maternal. She was more than the school cook. She was a mother figure in every way that counted.

Today, Stoney is still there. The porches are still there. The sycamores still stand.

But Ms. Perry, Mr. Wilborn and Mr. Frazier have all passed on. Their voices are quieter now, yet their imprint remains in the way people greet one another, in the way children are watched over and in the way respect is still quietly practiced.

This is not really a story about Wally Palmer. It is a story about Stoney — about a neighborhood that gave a little boy a sense of belonging when he needed it most. About elders who saw responsibility before they saw difference. About friendships formed in dusty football games, inside a broken-down bus and on the porch of a small island store.

Paul Tollefson is the Director of Tennis at the Hampton Hall Club. After moving from Hilton Head to Bluffton he became enthralled with the history of the town and the people and cultures that call it home. He has found a passion in writing and enjoys being able to share the stories and pictures of long-time locals. He is the co-creator of the Facebook page “Bluffton Then and Now.”