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ORAL HISTORY

Terry Dean

Island View Seafood

Terry Dean’s grandmother, Monette Hicks, came to Eastpoint with her parents in 1916. Terry grew up listening to her grandmother’s stories of what Eastpoint was like in the early days, when oysters were shucked in lean-tos on the shore and there wasn’t a thing on St. George Island—not even a bridge to get there. Electricity didn’t arrive in Eastpoint until the 1950s. Still, dozens of seafood houses dotted the waterfront. In every family there was an oysterman, a shucker, or a crab picker—probably all three. Today only a handful of seafood houses line the water’s edge through Eastpoint. Terry works at a retail market called Island View Seafood. There she cleans fish, bags oysters, and counts crabs. She has spent some time away from Florida. She wanted to show her children that there’s a whole world out there. But she eventually ended up back in Eastpoint. To her, it will always be home.