'A living legend': Meet Daufuskie Island's oldest resident

Published: May 29, 2024 https://www.postandcourier.com/beaufort-county/daufuskie-island-oldest-cleve-bryan/article_d5f92a0a-19d8-11ef-8ad9-6b9254ce5523.html

DAUFUSKIE ISLAND — Cleveland Bryan was hard to keep up with as he zoomed about his backyard on a blue mobility scooter. He gave a mischievous grin in response to the question of just how fast the scooter could go.

He pointed out his workshop at the edge of his yard, an old school bus filled with tools, small projects, newspaper clippings and old photos. He did a 180-degree turn and pointed to his pond, a peaceful body of water on that spring afternoon.

“I’ve shot alligators in there before,” he said.

Then he was off again, heading to his back porch while sharing the story of how he met his wife in New York City nearly half a century ago.

The 99-year-old grew up in a time well before electricity reached Daufuskie Island, when the oyster industry ruled and Gullah families cultivated a close-knit, self-sufficient community. It was a time before the fisheries closed and prestigious resorts and tourism ascended on the little bridgeless sea island. Before the island’s Black population dwindled.

Bryan was born on Prospect Road in 1925. He celebrated his 99th birthday on Feb. 26 in his home that sits less than a mile from the house he grew up in. The scooter was a birthday gift from fellow island residents.

Community members have described Bryan, known affectionately as Cleve, as a living legend, a tall and broad man who enjoys one-on-one conversation but isn’t a fan of, crowds. A former bodybuilder and a talented harmonica player who adored his late wife, Goldie Dolores Clarke.

And, as his friend Deb Smith leaned over to share while Bryan looked out over his pond, a man who hates alligators.

Smith is one of several island residents who assists Bryan with grocery runs and mail pickups. With some help, Bryan has been able to live independently, even as he approaches centenarian status.

“I feel that Cleve is really an island treasure, and he’s valued by the entire Daufuskie community,” Smith said. “As long as Cleve wants to stay in his current living situation, the Daufuskie community will be there to help make that possible.”

There were more than 100 Gullah families on Daufuskie Island when Bryan was a child. Today, there are about 15 Gullah residents left, said Nancy Ludtke, executive director of the Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation.

In the next decade, there may not be any Gullah people left on Daufuskie, Ludtke said, “but their heritage still lives here.”

When Bryan is gone, he’ll take with him a wealth of knowledge. But for now he’s willing to share the story of his life, one he tells in vignettes.

“She was born a slave,” Bryan said. “I think she was freed when she was 20 years old or so.”

His eldest brother was deployed to Germany during World War II and settled in New York City afterward. He sent for Bryan in 1946, but he didn’t send any money to cover the bus ticket up north. Bryan had to sell his ox for $35 to cover the cost.

Bryan settled in Harlem and got a job as a sheet metal worker with the New York Police Department. He also joined his brother’s hobby of weightlifting and became an avid cyclist.

“I rode my bike 100 miles one day,” Bryan said. “I used to cycle all the way out to Yonkers.”

A serious bike accident brought an abrupt end to his cycling days. He was riding along a bike trail in Prospect Park when a dog walker stepped into his path. Bryan wiped out, and his head “cracked like a coconut.”

He was in the hospital for 13 days, and, as he points out, the resulting scar can still be seen on his forehead.

Bryan recalls a visit to Savannah after living in New York for a number of years.

He walked into Woolworth’s, a five-and-dime whose lunch counter was one of many downtown targeted by sit-ins and boycotts around that time. Bryan ordered a hamburger and malt, but he was refused service.

“I went on the East Side and told them I want a malt and a hamburger, and they put everything into a bag,” Bryan said. “I said no, and the guy came around like he wanted to fight. They wouldn’t let me to eat inside. I don’t go in there to this day.”

He met his wife in a Harlem park on a cloudy day. He had laid out a blanket and was listening to the radio when Goldie and her sister walked by.

“She was beautiful,” Bryan said. “She said, ‘Turn your radio off; tell me all about yourself.’ “

Then she invited him to her house that evening to meet her father, “and that was that,” Bryan said. The couple got married in 1956 and moved back to Daufuskie around 1978. They had two children together and were married for 42 years when Goldie passed in 1999.

There are more stories. Enough to fill nearly a century of life.

There are the blues and jazz musicians Bryan met while in New York: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, to name a few. There’s the makeshift hurricane shelter he built in his backyard and the storms he refused to evacuate for. There are the times others made moves to take his land, which he proudly holds onto and cares for to this day.

And there are 99 birthdays, which in recent years have become big, community-celebrated occasions.

His 100th will surely be one for the history books.