"We're Sullivan's Islanders"

“We’re Sullivan’sIslanders”

Born and raised on Sullivan’s Island, 92 year-old Doris Lancaster looks back on a life full of sand spurs, smiles, and soldiers.

By Marci Shore Photo by Vincent J. Musi

Doris Lancaster, 92, beamed as she remembered the “grand time” she and her childhood friends had playing marbles, jumping rope, flying kites, hitchhiking rides to Isle of Palms to play the jukebox, and rolling old tires down the street at their home on Myrtle Avenue on Sullivan’s Island.

Crabbing, eating figs off her aunt’s tree, picking blackberries that were “so good,” and general “porch sitting” all surfaced with a smile as she recalled activities from a “simpler time,” when only one paved road ran through Sullivan’s Island to Isle of Palms, yards were wild, unmanicured and full of sand spurs, and the island crawled with young soldiers eager to find dance partners for military galas. “There were so many blue crabs back then to catch in the ocean. They were hungry for chicken legs,” says Doris. “You would put out a chicken leg or neck for bait and you’d soon see 5 or 6 crabs coming after it. You could go out and bring back two big galvanized bins of them.”

Doris Lancaster, 92, pictured talking about the military dances on the island she attended as a teenager. She is standing in front of the Sullivan’s home she and her husband, Bob, bought in 1954. Photo by Vince J. Must

Doris talks to me seated and masked in the living room of her Sullivan’s Island home on Thompson Avenue purchased by her and her husband, Robert “Bob” Lancaster in 1954. She met the Florida-born Bob when she was 17 and he was 19. It was 1945 and he was a GI stationed on the island. They were married a year and a half later.

Doris was born in this house on Myrtle Avenue in 1928, and lived there with her mother, four siblings and grandparents. Her grandfather William Blanchard built the house. Part of it still stands today.

Bob first saw Doris Sander walking on the beach while he was a lifeguard at Fort Moultrie. “I was with two friends and I was wearing a red, two-piece bathing suit. It covered everything though,” she recalls. “It wasn’t like the bathing suits today. He didn’t talk to us, but he decided he wanted me to be his girl.” She said it wasn’t uncommon for the soldiers to wave at them from the top of the Fort, or for the Coast Guard boats to send them signals, which they all quickly learned how to decipher.

Bob found out where Doris lived, and also found out her family had no telephone, but that a house a few doors down from hers did. He called the neighbor and soon they had a date to meet at the skating rink at the Recreation Hall, where the Fish Fry Shack and Island Club are now located.

“I remember some of the soldiers on skates were having a hard time standing up. They were having to hold up one another. We were not impressed,” she says. Immediately impressed with one another though, Doris and Bob were soon inseparable, married and began raising a family on Sullivan’s. They bought their house in 1959 and lived there 7 years until Bob was relocated to a job in Atlanta, as a Planner for the Army.

They lived full-time in Atlanta for nearly 40 years, returning to Doris’ hometown to vacation every summer. After the children were grown, Doris worked a while at a linen shop. “The day that school let out for summer, we took the kids and left to come back here,” she says, with childhood memories of rampant sand spurs they tried to dig up by the root, and swarming mosquitoes being only bittersweet.

They rented their Sullivan’s Island house out for a few years, just to pay the mortgage, and vacationed on Isle of Palms during the summer. It was too much work she said. “It was unreal what the renters did to our house. I certainly wasn’t going to sell my house either. We stopped renting after a few years. We missed it anyway. We’re Sullivan’s Islanders.”

The Recreation Hall where they met, was also used as a Dance Hall. She said the military would go door to door and “practically beg” the mothers and fathers to allow their teenage girls to attend the galas, dances, and USO Shows, some as young as 14 years old. They made a promise that they would all have chaperones. “There were so many military it was unbelievable. The dances were packed. At the end of a song, you’d get a tap on the shoulder to switch dance partners. We were in Heaven,” says Doris. “There was always supervision and boys weren’t allowed to take girls out of the dance hall. Of course back then, we didn’t allow boys to put their hands all over us like they do now.”

The dance cards of the single mothers were also often filled, as mothers and daughters alike would attend the galas. “There were a lot of older soldiers at the dances as well,” remembers Doris. Full orchestras performing Big Band music of Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra filled the Rec Hall. Doris’ mother and sister worked at the Post Exchange next door. After school events often involved a show at the theater and candy. “Christmas was just so wonderful,” said Doris of the services at Stella Maris Catholic Church. “There were no material things. Just a manger, and Midnight Mass.” All of her family members got married at Stella Marris. A painting of Jesus created by her brother, Herman, hangs in the entryway hallway.

In their later years, when she and Bob enjoyed an occasional cocktail, their Sunday routine went as follows: Sunday Mass, back home for a Bloody Mary, then to Sullivan’s Restaurant, their favorite place to eat on the island. Doris’s family owned the restaurant on Middle Street for 32 years, until it closed in late 2020. Doris sleeps in the bed where her mother, Cecile, gave birth to her in 1928, only a year before the Stock Market crash of 1929 and ensuing Depression years. The middle child of five, raised by a single mother, she never got to know her father. “It was kind of a theme on the island. There were quite a few abandoned mothers and children. Of course back then, there was no help—no welfare. We managed the best we could.”

Her mother’s maiden name was Blanchard, a well-known surname on the island. She shares the Blanchard heritage with her third cousin, best-selling author of Lowcountry-inspired novels, Dorothea Benton Frank, who was also a Blanchard. The house on Myrtle Avenue was built by her grandfather. There was no air conditioning. “We would sit on the porches, and I would push my bed near the window to get the breeze. Sometimes you just live with what you have to,” Doris explains. “Part of the house on Myrtle Avenue where we grew up, is still there. They took off the back of the house and added an addition and a runway to it. They told us they found some old marbles out front when they were remodeling it. I wish I could find the money to be able to buy it back.”

Of her four siblings, only one of Doris’ sisters survives; she lives in Summerville and isn’t able to drive any more. Just up until this past summer, Doris and Bob were still driving. Despite the COVID shutdowns, they masked up and drove to the store to pick up groceries. Doris and Bob had four children. Her son, Larry, passed in 2020, along with her sonin-law, Larry Joe. This December, Bob, her husband of 72 years, died of cancer. “I just miss him so much,” she says, holding back tears. “I find myself telling someone about the funeral and mistakenly say “wedding” sometimes.

“We just walked, and walked, and walked the length of the island. We rode bicycles as long as we could. There is no better place in the world to ride a bicycle than here,” says Doris, recalling how she and Bob loved talking to people who visited the island. “We meet so many nice people and they get so excited when they learn we’re from here. We almost felt like we were disappointing them when said goodbye.”

The increase in traffic and tourism, mansions and meticulously manicured yards has in no way taken away the beauty of the beach for Doris. “I feel sorry for the people who are too busy. Too busy to listen and watch the ships go by. They aren’t getting the same joy we had. It’s like God talking to you. You just have to stay still and take it all in. The beach is close to God. It’s peace, you see,"