Storytellers: Museum aims to capture memories

When Muriel Robson moved to the area with her family from New Jersey in 1946, the girl from the city got a culture shock from Destin's "rural living."

"When I moved to Destin, there were no sidewalks, street lights and not many phones," Muriel recalls. "You had to drive for miles and miles to get to a grocery store."

In 1951, Muriel took the name of the community that she would grow to love when she married boat captain Dewey "Buck" Destin, who passed away in 1989.

"Everybody here was married to a boat captain, so it was nothing unique," she said.
And it's hard to imagine now, but Destin's humble beginnings as a tiny fishing village left a lot to be desired when one was looking for something to do.

"People had to make their own entertainment and would have to pull practical jokes on each other," Muriel remembers fondly.
And so the pranks ensued.

"Once, they took a dummy and put a wig on it like a woman and took it out there by the rocks," Muriel said.

The dummy that was left floating in the water gave a poor unsuspecting boat captain the shock of his life when he discovered a drifting "body."

"He called Eglin - there was no Coast Guard then - to report a body," she said. "When Eglin came to pick up the body, it wasn't a body!"

Officials weren't pleased, and no one ever revealed the identity of the prankster.

Inside of her quaint home surrounded by family photos, Muriel recounted that tale of mischief to The Log with a few more memories of early Destin - tales that are likely to disappear with time if they are not passed down or recorded.

To combat the loss of these nostalgic morsels, the Destin History & Fishing Museum plans to launch an oral history project to capture the memories of Destin's longest living residents.

"It's so important to preserve these memories," said Janet Chapman, associate director of the museum.

Chapman said that they hope to turn the bits of oral history into interactive exhibits for the museum where people can push a button and get an authentic narration of early Destin memories from interviews.

"Everyone that we will be interviewing are between the ages of 79 and 85," Chapman said. "We need to capture the things that they know."

The ladies at the museum are well on their way to preserving these precious memories. On Monday night, the city council unanimously voted to cover the full amount of the project - about $4,000.

The money will cover the oral interviews being professionally recorded and production of DVDs.

"This is so important - we talk about preserving our heritage, but nobody's done it yet," Councilor Sam Seevers added. "The cost to do a quality recording has been out of their reach (but) these transcripts can be used for research, not just by the museum."

Now that the project has found its lucky break, the recorders will hopefully soon be rolling.

And Muriel, who has watched Destin develop over the decades, is an obvious wealth of knowledge for the museum. She told The Log she feels like a parent who has watched the community grow up, but that she misses the feel embodied in the Destin of yesteryear.

"That's to be expected," she said. "There are two sides to every coin."