legend local
Over the course of her long life, Dee Dee Bartels has made an impact on Fernandina as a shrimp boat captain, preservationist, and a driving force behind the start of the Shrimp Festival.
BY KAREN MILLER • PHOTOS BY SHERRY CARTER
D
ee Dee Bartels is a Renaissance woman, whose love of the sea and coastal communities planted the seeds that would form her fascinating life. At 99 years-young, Bartels is still a force to be reckoned with, with no slowing down in sight. Bartels claims it was her mother who blessed her with “magical thinking,” encouraging her to believe that anything is possible in this world. “My mother used to read me fairy tales, and made me believe in things I couldn’t see,” says Bartels. “The unknown, it was magical to me, a special way of looking at the world.” Bartels was born in Victoria, British Columbia, but eventually the family moved to Miami, where her father was one of the charter members of the Key Biscayne Yacht Club. “I grew up in a house with no other children, so I spent most of my time with adults,” says Bartels. “My father had a huge library, and I spent a lot of time in there, reading about all sorts of things. And we sailed whenever we could.” But Bartels life wasn’t always easy. Her beloved father died when she was 8-years-old, and she was sent to a Catholic boarding school. “When my father died, my mother remarried and moved to Atlanta. I was sent to the Convent of Mary 43 AMELIA ISLANDER MAGAZINE •
Immaculate, a Catholic boarding school in Key West,” says Bartels. “I did well in school, but I didn’t come out of school with any idea of what I wanted to do. I had so many interests.” Coming from a family of seafaring folks, Bartels learned to sail at a very young age, and she developed a keen interest in marine biology. That interest would eventually lead her into the shrimping industry. Bartels and her husband moved to Fernandina Beach in the mid-1950s with their two boys in tow. However, her husband’s work took them to California and Germany, before they returned to Fernandina. Bartels worked as a shrimp boat captain and owned two shrimp boats, Sunrise and Lady Wesa, becoming completely enmeshed in Fernandina’s coastal community. “When we first moved to Fernandina, a friend took me out on a shrimp boat,” says Bartels. “I fell completely in love with shrimping, and Fernandina.” The first Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival took place in 1964, featuring the Shrimp Boat Races for the promotion of tourism. But many people don’t realize that Bartels was the force behind the inaugural festival. continued on next page
SEPTEMBER 2022
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