“You know what the world is like. Nothing matters except machines and things.” Though she places great faith in executive director Elizabeth Dubose and educational director Paul Pressley, she understands that when she passes and Ossabaw reverts entirely back to the state, the era of her personal vigilance will end. “I’m gonna croak pretty soon, and I want you to be aware because this kind of thing is sneaky,” she warns, a call to the children and grandchildren of the disparate groups who saved Georgia’s coast 50 years ago to unify and “be an army if this place is threatened.” Though the recent acquisition of Boyles Island on the Altamaha River is a coup for Georgia’s conservation movement, the current administration’s track record on protecting our precious resources is far from stellar. Happy Birthday, Ms. West. May your legacy live on forever. cs For more information about Ossabaw Island Foundation Annual Meeting, go to ossabawisland.org.
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reoxygenating technologies.) One cannot talk about the preservation of Georgia’s coastal islands without a long, deep discussion of Eleanor “Sandy” Torrey West, the feisty matriarch of Ossabaw Island. Her famous 18–year wrangle to turn her family’s island into the state’s first heritage preserve takes up a large chunk of Dr. Finlay’s book and will be his main subject when he addresses the Ossabaw Island Foundation at its annual meeting this Thursday, Jan. 10 at the Coastal Georgia Center. The meeting coincides with the week of Sandy’s 100th birthday. This plucky dowager has fiercely protected Ossabaw for almost half her life and still lives in the family mansion amongst the live oaks and saw palmettos. She understands that history can change tracks and will continue her plea to keep up the fight at the meeting via Skype. “I really am worried about what’s going to happen to Ossabaw,” she invokes in a video taken at the foundation’s 2011 pig roast as attendees dined on barbecue culled from the island’s wild herd.
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