by Pamela Gilbert Wortzel
Sanibel Island has a richer and more ethnically diverse history than most people realize. Local authors Yvonne Hill and Marguerite Jordan, in collaboration with the Lee County Black History Society, celebrate this history in the book Sanibel Island, a highly informative collection of photographs highlighting the contributions of early black and white pioneers to the island’s settlement.
Although Sanibel is known today for its beautiful beaches and resorts, it was once primarily an agricultural community. Originally settled by the Calusa Indians, the island and its fertile soil attracted American settlers in the 1800s. Raising crops such as tomatoes, peppers, citrus fruit, and coconuts became the main industry on the island until the hurricane of 1926. As a result of that disastrous storm, the soil became polluted by saltwater. Local farmers were unable to recover from this devastating event, and the settlers who remained on the island had to find new ways to make a living. Eventually, the island’s pristine beaches and excellent shelling helped create an active tourist trade, which remains Sanibel’s main industry today.
Among the early black settlers were the Gavin and Walker families. Hannah and Isaiah Gavin and their four children came to sharecrop on Sanibel in 1917. After the hurricane of 1926, Isaiah turned to landscaping as a way to make a living, planting the pine trees that lined Periwinkle Way for many years.
Pearl Alice Walker and Harry Walker, Sr. also came to Sanibel as sharecroppers in the early 1920s. After the hurricane of 1926, Harry Walker, Sr. worked as a laborer to support his family. When the soil eventually became sufficiently renourished for farming, Walker worked the land until his death in 1969.
Edmund Gavin, the son of Isaiah Gavin, married Elnora Walker in 1933, uniting the two families. Edmund, who worked as a builder and landscaper, designed the first automatic mosquito-control defogger to help curb the swarms of mosquitoes that made life so difficult for islanders. Many members of the Gavin and Walker families still live and work on the island today, providing crucial services such as plumbing and landscaping.
After Yvonne Hill, a native of Princeton, New Jersey, who is African-American, moved to Sanibel in 2001, she began to learn about the island’s diverse history. “People kept stopping me and asking me if I was a Gavin,” she says. “So I realized that there had to be a black family here. I wondered who they were.”
After meeting members of the Gavin family and learning about the significant contributions of the early settlers, Hill felt that it was important for people to know more about the diverse backgrounds of the island’s pioneers. She began gathering photographs and information and, after securing a contract for the book with Arcadia Publishing, collaborated on the project with Marguerite Jordan, whose husband, James, is a planner for the city of Sanibel and a descendant of the Walker family.
“We are both passionate about history,” says Jordan, who originally hails from Chicago. “What inspired me most was realizing how far back the African-American roots go on Sanibel.”
Though the island’s black history is what originally intrigued the authors, the book spotlights the contributions of settlers of all ethnicities. Photographs of early families such as the Baileys, Bowens, Mathews, and Woodrings, along with the Walkers and Gavins, depict a Sanibel that existed long before the days of the causeway and condominiums.
“One of the things that really impressed me is the perseverance that the early settlers had,” says Hill. “They learned to love and appreciate the islands in spite of the hurricanes, the mosquitoes, lack of health-care facilities.”
While black and white settlers did work together, there were still divisions, and segregation affected many aspects of life. In the days before the causeway to the mainland was built in 1963, “black and white kids rode separate ferries to schools in Fort Myers,” says Hill. “The black kids had to catch the second ferry, so they were always late to school.” In the early 1960s, St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church became the first island church to integrate, under the leadership of civil rights activist Father Madden.
“What stood out was how hard people had worked, how they persevered, how they loved the island and wanted the opportunity to raise their families here,” says Jordan. She and her husband have done just that, raising their daughters Alicia and Angelica on the island her husband’s family has long called home.
It took almost a year for Hill and Jordan to put the book together, which will help people understand the island in a new way. “The response to the book has been very positive,” says Jordan. “We are so proud of the final outcome. It has been such a labor of love.”
An ongoing exhibit has evolved from the photographs and information collected in the book. The exhibit is currently on display at a temporary space at Sanibel’s Islander Center, but the organizers are hoping to establish an island cultural center where the exhibit will have a permanent home. Many of the photos were contributed by Eugene Gavin and other members of the Gavin family.
“This is an organic exhibit; it lives, it grows, it breathes,” says Hill. “People have been fascinated and extremely interested. We want people to be aware of the significant contribution that early black families made to this magnificent island sanctuary. They cleared land, planted trees, built houses, did hauling, [did] domestic work, and worked at resorts. That legacy should not be lost.”
Sanibel Island (Arcadia Publishing, $19.99) is available for sale at numerous locations on Sanibel and in Fort Myers. An ongoing exhibit of photographs collected for the book is currently on display at the Islander Center at 2401 Periwinkle Way (Unit 1) on Sanibel.
Pamela Gilbert Wortzel has been writing about Southwest Florida for many years. She currently divides her time between Florida and Arizona.