The brush underfoot crunched as he made his way through a throng of draping tree branches and overgrown vegetation towards the site of his childhood home. It had been about 70 years since Bob Tuten visited this place, located on an undeveloped patch of land near Daniel Island’s western shoreline, and he could hardly contain his excitement.
"I have a feeling we’re right close to it now," said the 82 year old Tuten, who now lives in Florida.
Tuten and his son, Keith, decided to search for the spot while on a visit to the island in June. Joining the eager pair on the tour were Daniel Island author and history buff, Michael Dahlman, and his son, Michael, Jr., Jan Malloy of the Daniel Island Company, and Betsy McMillan, a history teacher at Bishop England High School.
"There was a field in front of us," Tuten continued, as thunder clouds boomed overhead. "The walls should be over there."
A canopy of trees held back a light but steady drizzle as the group arrived at the brick remains of two chimneys.
"I know this is definitely it," he said, stopping at the edge of a small pile of tumbling bricks and looking out beyond the site. "This was our view out of the house…as I can picture it…all marshland."
Tuten was just eight-years old when his family moved to Daniel Island from Varnville, South Carolina. He lived with his family in a modest two bedroom home on the island between the fall of 1935 and the summer of 1941, while his father operated a farm for the American Fruit Growers Company. While there is nothing left of the structure itself, Tuten’s impeccable memory painted a vivid picture of days gone by.
"This was where I slept," he said, pointing to the space beside what was left of the chimney stack. "The wall was over there. This was my parents’ bedroom. There was a wall between that fireplace over there, that was the living room. And then we had views on both sides."
Tuten even remembers playing with his best friend, Isaac, who lived just over a stretch of marshland nearby. Together, they built a tree house in a large oak tree located between their houses, he said.
Earlier on the tour, Dahlman drove Tuten through Daniel Island’s neighborhoods, offering the senior a glimpse of what has become of the place he used to call home.
"That was the storekeeper’s house," said Tuten, as they drove alongside a well manicured grassy area shaded by large oak trees at the intersection of Daniel Island Drive and Smythe Street.
But as Dahlman’s van proceeded down Smythe Street past the Pirate Park, Tuten’s face brightened as he pointed excitedly out the window.
"The school was right there!" he exclaimed, with childlike enthusiasm. "Right there by that big oak tree. That’s where the outhouse was! That tree was in our front yard and the school was to the left of it. I sat there a lot of days and opened my brown bag and ate my sandwich. I’m positive!"
"What I’ve been telling people is, where kids are playing today on that playground, is probably where kids played long ago," added Dahlman, who documented Tuten’s days on the island in Daniel Island, a book he co-authored with his son in 2006.
The group continued down Smythe Street towards the Wando River, where they stepped out to explore the waterfront area near the present-day tree house structure placed in the neighborhood by the Daniel Island Company. When Tuten lived on the island, this area was known as the Mitchell Pier complex and was the "nerve center" of the American Fruit Growers’ operations. Here, there were multiple structures, including a barn, a general store, a packing shed for crops, a pier for shipping and receiving goods, and a home for the Superintendent and his family.
"The Superintendent’s house was right there," said Tuten, gesturing towards a now vacant spot on the waterfront. "You walked out the front porch and you were on the edge of the river."
The pilings from the Mitchell Pier can still be seen today at low tide, added Dahlman.
"This was where we got all of our mail and ice delivered," said Tuten. "Paychecks came this way, everything came this way."
"These are the original piers of your packing shed," Dahlman told Tuten, pointing down at the ground.
Tuten recalled having dinner at the home of his aunt and uncle, who also lived on the island at the time and were part of the farming operations.
"She had to cook a fairly decent dinner when the two bosses came over," he said. "…We ate with them. When they would start to leave, they would carefully tuck 15 cents under the plate, both of them…They were just paying for the meal."
Since Tuten didn’t live at the Mitchell Pier site, he used to walk from his home to the school each weekday (once he got older he went to school in Moncks Corner).
"And how long a walk was it to school?" asked McMillan.
"It was uphill both ways!" Tuten quipped, eliciting a peel of laughter in the car. "No more than 20 minutes, if I didn’t stop on the way to shoot a bird or something!"
He remembered being surprised one day on his way home from school to find a little structure with a windmill set up along the road near today’s Bishop England High School.
"I stopped and looked there and the guy had a refrigerator in it!" he said. "We didn’t have electricity! (He) was the first entrepreneur I think on Daniel Island. They had the place stocked with candy bars, cold drinks, crackers, tobacco….It was windmill generated power."
Ultimately, however, the business didn’t survive, Tuten said, as most people living on the island then were very short on cash.
"Let’s look at it this way," he explained. "(A) guy is working all day, he makes a buck a day. So he stops by this place on his way home for a coke for six cents and a pack of crackers for a nickel. That’s 11 cents, right? He’s already spent 11 percent of his earnings for one day and he hasn’t even gotten home yet. Can you imagine anybody that would buy anything? They didn’t have any money."
But despite living with very limited means, Tuten’s memories of Daniel Island are rich indeed. Even though he only spent about 6 years here, the experience is still fresh in his mind.
