"As a small child, she remembered 

 people sitting around talking about people 

 that tried to fly," says Muzel's caretaker, 

 Kenny Ballance, referring to the Wright 

 brothers' flight over Kitty Hawk in 1903. 



Despite the astounding changes in 

 technology, world politics and culture 

 during her lifetime, Muzel takes things in 

 stride. "WelJ," she admits with a shrug, 

 "there have been a lot of changes." 



JUST LIKE FAMILY? 



Growing up, the Bryant children 

 may have seemed like any other group 



TOP: Back row, from left: Muzel's parents, Elsie Jane and Leonard with family 

 friend. Front Row, from left: Muzel's sister Mildred, brothers Lewis and Artis, 

 Muzel and cousin. MIDDLE, LEFTTO RIGHT: Muzel's sister Mamie, 

 brother Artis, sister Annie Laura, and Muzel's son Charles, who was born in 

 1925 and died in 1988. LEFT: Leonard Bryant, a sexton at the Methodist 

 church, appears here with Ocracoke resident Doris Garrish. 



of siblings as they played by the shore and 

 "mommucked" their elders, a local term 

 meaning "to irritate or bother." And although 

 many in the community felt they accepted the 

 Bryants "just like family," Wolfram discovered 

 that certain social boundaries once existed 

 between Muzel's family and other Ocracokers. 



"They didn't go to school with the regular 

 kids," Howard says. "But the white kids their 

 age would teach them." 



"And Mu' was always very proud of the 

 fact that she could read," she adds. 



Ironically, when the community 



celebrated Muzel's 100th birthday last March, 

 the party was held at the same school she and 

 her siblings could not attend. 



As Wolfram learned more about Muzel's 

 life on the island, he uncovered other, more 

 subtle examples of those social boundaries. 



At one time the island had a dance hall, 

 he says, describing it as a simple wooden room 

 with a record player and a few metal chairs. 

 "When we asked Muzel if she used to go to 

 the dance hall, she said she did," he reports. 

 "However, when we asked her if she liked to 

 dance, she said she didn't know because she 

 had never gone in; instead, she stayed outside, 

 watching the others 

 through the window." 



Those kind of 

 educational and social 

 boundaries, coupled with 

 the isolation of island life, 

 may explain why many 

 of Muzel's siblings left 

 Ocracoke. 



All of the Bryants' 

 nine children, except 

 Muzel, Mildred and 

 Julius, settled on the 

 mainland, either in North 

 Carolina or in northern 

 states. 



The youngest, John 

 Thomas, moved to Elkin 

 and was a chauffeur for 

 the Reynolds family, of 

 tobacco fame. Two of 

 Muzel's brothers, Lewis 

 and Jeffrey, worked 

 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and 

 her oldest brother, Artis, joined the Merchant 

 Marines. 



Muzel's sisters were equally ambitious. 

 Mildred worked in Washington, N.C., and 

 Baltimore for nearly 15 years, returning to 

 the island in the early 1 940s. Mamie moved 

 to Connecticut and later taught school in 

 New York City, where she still lives with her 

 daughter. Annie Laura lived in Washington, 

 N.C., where she may have received some 

 schooling, according to Alton Ballance in 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 21 



