Virginia Morton PHOTO PROVIDED

Virginia Morton said her grandfather was a fisherman from the Canary Islands who somehow discovered Cayo Costa, where he built a home for the family. Morton, who was born on Pine Island, said her first memories are of living on an old houseboat that belonged to her uncle, which had been dragged up on shore.

Her family left the island for a short time, when her father went into the military, but as soon as he got out, Morton said they came back to Matlacha and never left again. She recalls there not having been many people on the island back when she was growing up. Most people, she said, like her own father, were fisherman.

“There was no traffic — a car or two every day and we used to run up and down the road singing,” she said. “It’s changed, but life hasn’t really changed. I still love Matlacha. There was hardly anyone living on the island when I was growing up. Everybody knew everybody so it was nothing to walk into somebody’s house and sit and have coffee for three hours. Everybody loved everybody just like we were one big family.”

Having been here before there were any schools, Morton said she and her friends all went to J. Colin English in North Fort Myers. On Sundays, she said the bells would ring and everyone went to church. At 13, Morton got a job at Piners Seafood, where she says everyone seemed to work at one time or another.

“This was a man who bought crabs and oysters, shrimp and scallops,” said Morton. “There was an outdoor movie theater on the island, where we would pop popcorn and watch movies on the weekends. We played on the big bridge — I must have stubbed my toe 50 times on that bridge.”

This week’s featured Grown Up Islander Virginia Morton from her early years on Pine Island and Matlacha. PHOTO PROVIDED

The Matlacha Bridge was made of wood back then and she would fall asleep at night listening to anyone who came by in a car hitting each of the wood slats. Morton said it’s been 75 or 80 years since her father owned Jug Creek Marina. She said he sold it and then bought it back before he died, with the desire that she and her husband would take it over. They did, she said, and then continued to run it for 35 years.

Morton has had no desire to live elsewhere, and said she can’t imagine being anywhere but here. When she was just a baby, she acquired the name Gypsy, given to her by her father.

“I hated that name,” said Morton. “That name stuck all through grade school and part of high school until one day I said, I don’t want to be called that again. Some people still slip up now and again and call me that.”

When it comes to people who’ve only recently made their way to Pine Island, Morton would like them to know that this is the best place in the world to be.

“It was a good place to grow up and it’s a good place to live now. I think we’re safer here than anywhere,” said Morton.

This week’s featured Grown Up Islander Virginia Morton from her early years on Pine Island and Matlacha. PHOTO PROVIDED