FLORIDA’S FORGOTTON COAST: LIFE ON THE APALACHICOLA BAY
WORKING THE BAY
Melaine Cooper Covell
James Hicks
Monette Hicks
Monica Lemieux
Carl McCaplan
James & Betty McNeill
Charles & Rex Pennycuff
A. L. Quick
Henry Tindell

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Wes Birdsong
Corky Richards
Bobby Shiver
Charles Thompson
Genaro “Jiggs” Zingarelli

PROCESSING THE CATCH
Terry Dean
Grady Leavins
Lynn Martina
Fred Millender
Janice Richards
Anthony Taranto
Tommy Ward

THE SWEET SIDE
Donald Smiley
George Watkins

VINTAGE APALACH
Seafood & Honey

WHERE TO EAT
Apalach Eateries

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Interviews & photographs by Amy Evans

This project sponsored by the St. Joe Company.

Melanie Cooper Covell is the seventh generation to call Apalachicola home. Born in 1968, she and her four siblings grew up working at their parents’ business, Cooper’s Seafood. Melanie has been shucking oysters since she was fifteen years old. The family business closed in 1994, when Melanie’s father, Fred Cooper, passed away. But she continued to shuck. And she painted houses too. In 2004 Melanie married Larry Covell. Together, they opened the Wheelhouse Raw Bar in downtown Apalachicola. Melanie’s brother, Joey, is the cook. His mullet dip is unrivaled. But the Wheelhouse is as well-known for community outreach. Melanie and her family host a food drive every Monday. When the bay is closed, they are also known to hold fundraising events to support oystermen in the area. Melanie has a passion for people and for the place where she lives. Here, Melanie’s children—the eighth generation—swim in the same water and play in the same wilderness that she enjoyed as a kid.

Listen to this 2-minute audio clip of Melanie Cooper Covell talking about the Indian mounds in and around Apalachicola.
[Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.]

What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Melanie Cooper Covell – owner, The Wheelhouse Raw Bar
Date: March 25, 2006
Location: The Wheelhouse Raw Bar – Apalachicola, FL
Interviewer: Amy Evans

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 in Apalachicola, Florida, at the Wheelhouse Oyster Bar with Melanie Covell. And Melanie, would you mind saying your name and also your birth date, if you don't mind, for the record?

Melanie Cooper Covell:  Okay, my full name is Melanie Cooper Covell, and I was born March 14th, 1968 in Apalachicola.

And your family goes back a far piece in this area.

So far we've found seven generations.

And you've been doing the family tree and digging up all that information.

The family tree on the bay side, and most all of them are seafood workers.

So tell me about what you were telling me about earlier—as far back as you've gone and the names and the—.

Actually, as I said, that would be my dad, which is a Cooper [Fred Cooper], it's his mother, which was a Hall. Her mother was a Roan. I traced that family, the Roans, back to 1824. Living in Florida—Franklin County. Which in 1824, Apalach didn't really exist as Apalachicola. Carrabelle did, I think, at that time. And the Halls came from Ireland. They were probably here by 1840—something like that. And the Barbers on my mom's side came from Georgia probably about the same time.

So [your family was in] the seafood industry for many generations back?

Yeah.

And you grew up in it?

Uh-hmm, we grew up shucking oysters every day [and] mama did.

Your family had a [seafood] house? Do I remember that right?

My family [had] Cooper's Seafood on Highway 98. [To her mother, Joanne Cooper] When did y’all have that mama?

Joanne Cooper:  We—let's see, we had it about twenty-one years when daddy died, so 1954—not fifty-four. We started it in the [nineteen] fifties—beginning of the '50s. And your daddy [Fred Cooper] died in [nineteen] ninety-four.

MC: They built it their selves.

So [they] started it in the [nineteen] '50s.

JC:  So I guess we did—we worked there about twenty years.

Okay. So was it a fish house or an oyster house?

JC: Oyster house.

Oyster house. And you shucked at the house?

JC:  Yeah. And I shucked and I paid off my—to get out of the house. And back then they had in the center of the oyster house they had bins in the center. And I'd—I think they—since then they've taken them down. They used to just dump the oysters in there.

MCC:  Like big horse stalls.

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So Melanie, how old were you when you started shucking?

For a living, fifteen. But before that we played around with that. We shucked since I was fifteen, and I'm still shucking [for the Wheelhouse Raw Bar].

What was it like growing up here and in the business?

It was a fun. This was a beautiful place to grow up. We got up in the morning, and you put your bathing suits on and your cut-off shorts. Nobody wore shoes, and you just ran up and down the bay. We swam in the bay [and] the river every day of our lives. It was so much fun. [We] ate oysters every day. I did.

Tell me about your brothers and the rest of your family.

I have three brothers and one sister. Rudolph oystered, Joey did, Kenneth did, and Karen shucked a little bit—something she swears she'll never do again. [Laughs]

Say again what year the oyster house closed, Cooper's Oyster House. Nineteen ninety-four?

JC:  My husband died in [nineteen] ninety-four, and we were in the process of selling it when he died.

May I ask how he passed?

JC:  Heart attack. Massive heart attack.

And then y’all were out of the business then when—?

Yeah.

And what did y’all do after that? Did you stay shucking?

MCC:  We shucked for somebody else.

Okay, who was that?

MCC:  Who did we shuck for after that mama?

JC:  I shucked for anybody. To get out of the house, you know, and I enjoyed it.

MCC:  Annie Mae—Annie Mae Wilson.

So how long did you stay in that?

MCC:  You shucked until you started working here, huh, Mama?

JC: Uh-hmm.

MCC: Which has been about two years ago.

Okay. And so this place, the Wheelhouse [Raw Bar], used to be like a bait and tackle place, is that right?

MCC: Uh-hmm. Let's see, me and Larry [Covell] first opened it as a bait and tackle. Both of us really wanted to open a restaurant the whole time. After about a year of that, we closed it and opened the restaurant. And we wanted to start out with just oysters on the half shell and steamed shrimp. And then I really don't know what happened from there. [Laughs] We just keep making the menu bigger and bigger.

And how long have you and Larry been married?

We've been married two years.

So you were shucking up until—and I remember, though, that you painted houses, too. Did you do that on the side?

Yes, I'm still doing that occasionally, every now and then. I painted houses, and I shucked when there weren't any houses to paint. Again, when I married Larry, I quit shucking, and I did a little bit just a while back and did this—this oyster shucking, and then all of this, and I still paint houses every now and then.

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And so now all your brothers—I remember that Rudolph is working construction…And Joey works here [at the Wheelhouse Raw Bar].

Uh-hmm. Let's see, Kenneth moved to South Carolina.

So why did they get out of oystering?

I don't know. I know that [Kenneth] oystered off and on—probably construction or something. [His wife’s] family is from the Carolinas. They were looking for a better life, basically. It's kind of hard to—the living is really hard here, especially the seafood industry. It's hard work, it really is.

So was the Wheelhouse restaurant an opportunity for you and your brother and Larry to get out of the [oyster] business and do something else?

Uh-hmm, yeah. Joey, growing up, he always wanted to cook. He knew what he wanted from the time he was a little kid. He would make us like omelets and stuff like that, and when he was young he worked, I think—he worked in the Carolinas, and he worked on one of the casino boats in Mississippi as a chef. And he came down to visit [us], and he wanted to come back home and asked Larry if he needed another cook. I said, “Thank God, yes, yes!” And he came, and he's happy. And he loves to cook.

And y’all have developed your menu a lot over the past few months. Even as I've been visiting here, a lot has been added to it.

It's all Joey's recipes. Yes, all that like the mullet dip and the cakes and the pies and the Alfredos, and all of that is Joey's.

So what did it take to open this place?

Okay, this building was the B-9 Marine. It was—let's see, Larry was—in the beginning, he was like the keeper of this place. He could have done anything he wanted to with it. The man that owns the property, Larry stayed down here and he made sure nothing went wrong, and he watched the boats and the place like that—the groundskeeper. And from there he just—I don't know why we decided to open a restaurant. We just probably casually were talking about it, and then decided we'd do it—an oyster bar. We decided we'd do an oyster bar because there were no oyster bars here. And then, since we did the oyster bar, two more opened up.

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So now that you've been in the restaurant business a little while, what do you like about it?

Getting to eat every day. [Laughs] Oysters and fried food every day. That really—It's just fun to cook. It's fun to cook, and it's fun to serve people and see their expressions, and it's nice to serve them a good meal, and they're happy, and they're full, and they're content. I kind of want to work on like the atmosphere. We want to make it a theme of some sort, something to do with the bay. We're just not there yet.

Well, and Larry was telling me on the boat today that y’all are thinking about building a free-standing [building next door]?

We're supposed to. I'm not going to hold my breath. So far we've had a lot of trouble getting it going, so I just—if it happens, it happens. I live here. And it's like, when we have a storm, we have to move everything out. We have got to move our refrigerators and our ice machines, our tables, our chairs—we have to move—even your pens and your ticket books—everything comes out of the whole building. And if you have four storms—sometimes they're two weeks apart—you've got to close two or three days ahead of time.

Where do you take [everything]?

We take it—we live up the river two miles on land. We take it all the way up there, what used to be the old poggie [fish] plant. Do you know anything about the old poggie plant?...Poggie is a fish and they used to catch the fish, the poggies, and bring them in there. I remember growing up and all of us kids would get in a car and go riding around and bogging and, you know, take your big truck, and you'd bury it pretty much, and we'd go out to the poggie plant. And it always smelled, you know, stunk real bad of rotting fish. But then I remember somebody telling me that they made perfume out of poggie. I don't know if that's true or not.

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The first night I ever [spent] in Apalach, I came to the Wheelhouse, and y’all were having that toy drive for the oystermen and all [that weekend]. It really struck me how community-minded y’all are and that you do all these events to help people in the community and do the food pantry thing on Mondays and all that.

And that taught the younger kids. Like I had a twenty-one year-old and a nineteen year-old and they—the twenty-one year-old had no idea how broke you could possibly get. Really, until she saw, you know, a lot of these people and, you know, listened to their stories and all that and it only takes a few months to lose everything. And she learned a lot of things—some good lessons, I think, but she was really great during the whole thing. Shannon—Shannon is the oldest. She would—well first thing in the morning, get up and we'd work all day on it, and all her spare time went to it, and she was a wonderful, wonderful person—still is, but she was really great through all that.

And that was just y’all trying to give back to the oystermen and their families because of the red tide and the bay had been closed for so long?

Uh-hmm…Yeah, because at one time when Mama and Daddy had the oyster house [and] almost lost everything [because of a hurricane]. I remember—And we knew how it was—how it felt. And it's like—babies that didn't have diapers. You know, if you don't have money, you just don't have money, and people just couldn't understand that. We plan on doing something else further down the line. I promised Larry I would work on the Wheelhouse a little bit, and then after that and after things are settled, we're going to get back on some kind of a fundraiser. I'm not sure. Like there's one in Eastpoint, a church, and they help like the disabled and the elderly and all that, so we're going to kind of do something like that. And what I told him, I said, “Storms are just around the corner, and they predict we're going to have a year just like last year.” So we could get a head start on it. It would be nice.

Did you do things like that before you had this place?

Not like that, no, um-um. [I’d] lend money to teenagers. [Laughs] Stuff like that but no, nothing like this. It got real big real fast, and we did not expect that.

So what has the response of the oystering community been to your generosity?

I made a lot of new friends. And a lot of the girls that came [to the fundraiser], I used to shuck with a long time ago. And they're just real kind and they—you know, they still tell you thank you, stuff like that. You know, it gets a little embarrassing and all that but it's—I think maybe, when you do something like that, I believe it kind of—I don't know. Sometimes it will bring out the best in people maybe a little bit. I don't know. More people I think should get involved in fundraisers because it's just going to get worse, as far as the storms and stuff like that. There's a lot of people capable of doing it too. We're going to work on it.

Well I definitely believe you get what you give, so that's a good thing you're doing, definitely. So tell me about being in the restaurant business. What have you learned? What has the learning curve [been]?

In the restaurant business the hardest thing—let's see, the hardest thing about the restaurant business is pleasing everybody…But as far as the food, like my brother [Joey], he's real good with it, and we both take a lot of pride in it, and we both—that's my passion, to cook, and it's his too. Larry is our guinea pig, and he loves that job. He loves it. The biggest problem we have is getting people to clean up. That's it. [Laughs] Mama is one of them. [Laughs]…Nobody knows how to sweep, nobody knows how to mop, nobody knows how to wipe a table off. [Too her mother, Joanne] And they can count them tips, though, can't you?

JC: Yes, ma'am, I'm good at math. [Laughs]

A family affair. You’ve got your mom working here and your brother and your husband and your daughter?

Uh-hmmm…Yeah, this is mama's first time waitressing. She was always an oyster shucker.

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So has business been good to you since you opened? Are you staying busy?

Business was really good in the beginning. The storm [2005’s Hurricane Dennis], it was terrible. It's picking up really, really good right now. Right now, I think we're going to have a really good summer, real good spring. But it was slow during the storm. I thought we were going to have to close, like afterwards and the red tide, because everybody comes here for oysters and nobody had any. And then Louisiana got hit [by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita], so we couldn't get them. And you could get Texas [oysters], but they have some really big oysters, and we are a half shell bar, so it was pretty rough for a while.

Where are you getting your oysters now?

Right now we get them from—sometimes Harley Allen, a couple places—Harley Allen and Water Street Seafood and Water Street Seafood's, Dee Rash, bought my dad's oyster house. Let's see, that's pretty—I think occasionally we get them from Ward's [at 13 mile]—whoever has got them.

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So now then, too, you're in the restaurant business, and then Larry has got his fishing trips and kayak rentals, and y’all have really diversified. Has that made it easier so when the restaurant is down a little bit something else can go up, or is it still just so seasonal?

Well, like when the restaurant was slow, Larry's [boat] tours is what kept us afloat because he does like the winter hunting things that they do here on the—St. Vincent Island. He tries to stash most of that money to get us through the winter in case it gets hard, but Larry loves it. Larry loves everything he does. He's living a dream. He told me when we first met that his dream was pretty much what we're doing right now: work[ing] on the water with the tours and have a restaurant. And he's got it all.

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What do you think the future of the Wheelhouse is here and what you've got going on—what you started?

Oh gosh, if it got any bigger, I couldn't handle it by myself really. So I guess that's why I'm scared of the other building over there because it's going to get big and right now the way it is it's hard to keep up with it; it's hard to keep up with the people, the money; you're always running out of something. You never know until you're cooking and you have none left, even though you stock pretty good. We're going to learn how to communicate a little better. I'm scared and—. As long as my brother is with me and—I think it will be all right. He—he really knows his stuff where restaurants are concerned.

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Are you pleased that it's turned out like it has and it's given your family something to do other than working just in the industry?

I'm pleased. And I know it makes my brother really happy, it makes my husband happy, it makes my kids happy, it makes me happy and it makes mama happy so it's—I guess it's good for everybody.

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So tell me, too, about the Indian mounds and the stuff you know about the area, because you seem so passionate about the history of the area and landscape and everything.

All right. That started when we were kids, and Dad took us to every Indian mound there is. And it's like one's at St. Joseph—near St. Joseph State Park; there's—there is one here; he took us to Eastpoint to one, he took—out along Indian Pass. And he had a name for every one of them like Pottery Beach, Stump Hole…But he would take us, and there was one beach that just had Indian pottery all over the place. And myself and my brother, Joey, had—we were real curious about it. I met a lady just here a while back that's real passionate about the mounds and all that, and so we've been digging up any kind of information we could get on it. But there's a lot of them here and just the way they lived it was really—you know, how they could have ever survived just—oh, Lord. I don't know. When you go onto the mound at Magnolia [Cemetery in Apalachicola] you can still see pottery on the ground, and you can see the big mound.

So when you were coming up in school here, did you learn about all that stuff, or is it stuff that your dad just showed you?

Um-mm, we didn't learn any [in school]—not that I could remember. I wasn't a history student but [Laughs]—I was cutting class. But I don't remember anything like that. Most of what we learned, we've learned from the Internet. The public library has all kind of books on it. There's a new one out, and I don't know what it's called. Larry knows—something about the river—but it tells you all about the mounds up the river. Boy, when you come back he could take you up there,. The one on St. Vincent Island, it's really interesting. The pottery has designs in it. [The book] would tell you all about how they used bear grease in their hair and then put the red pollen or yellow pollen and decorated their hair. And there was the speeches he would give. He would give the speeches to the men—the Chief would, and he told us the name of the Chief…People think they weren't civilized but the more you read about, them they were…It's really interesting.

So how do you think your father knew about all these mounds and all these sites?

From what I understand, his mother—that is the side that has been here. Her—my mother's—my mother's—mother's father was born here in 1825, twenty-four.

And what was his name? Do you remember or know?

I know his first initial was L, the middle initial T and the last name Roan…And her name was Francis Thinsa Roan.

Well it sounds like y’all need to get together and write some of this down.

Yeah. We're trying…They have a really nice lady, she works at the library, and she started doing different bits and pieces for free. And so I offered to pay her if she'd dig real deep, and she's got all the means. She knows what's she's doing; she did her own family tree. It's amazing what you can find and what's there.

Do you take your girls out to these sites?

Oh yeah, always have. I take my nieces and my nephews; I take my kids. I don't bring anybody else's. A lot of people are real spooked. They think it's an evil [thing]. They do. A lot of people are really scared of the mounds.

Really? A lot of the locals?

Yeah, the locals. You know all your life you hear what is it—Indian burial grounds are evil. You don't go near them. It's like a voodoo thing or whatever, is what they think.

That's a shame.

Uh-hmm, yeah. [Laughs] Really a shame. It's like when I took the kids, I had to tell them, “Now don't go tell your teacher you did this.” The first thing my nephew did is go tell his teacher that he went on the Indian mound and [that] we stayed there for hours, and she was shocked. He didn't mention it again.

Are the mounds that you go to, are they designated as historical sites?

No. No, the one—that is something I've been worrying about because I've noticed some work going on down there. When I mentioned it to some people, and they were going to find out what's going on—because all know [is that] it's a mound. I went on the Internet and I found the government doesn't own it. It's supposed—it is a historical site, but it's not to where people can't molest it. I don't know why not. It's in a book. It's on the Internet. It describes them, it describes what they are. They've found bones—it's a burial [place], and it's spiritual, so the only one that I know that they have saved is the one near St. Joseph State Park. And there's St. Vincent Island. You can't dig there; you can't do anything. And there's lots of pottery [on the island]. Like the storm will blow trees over, and there's pottery all in the roots. It's beautiful.

It sounds like you may have found yourself another cause.

Yeah. [Laughs]

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So how have you watched Apalach change, having grown up here and stayed and kind of changed your livelihood around to suit?

Well let's see, when we were growing up, there might have been two shacks down at Indian Pass, that's it. The Island though is just—there's a lot more going up, a lot more houses and a lot more businesses. Everything is outrageously priced now—when it wasn't. Ah, it's not as near laid back. I think people are a tad bit more uptight, which that happens anywhere. Compared to other places, when I say it's not quite so laid back, how much worse can it get? [Laughs] It's—like we grew up; we grew up and just—just ran and played all day long. The kids can't do that now. That's everywhere though. Basically it's—it's the building. There is twice as many places here.

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Have you always wanted to stay here [in Apalachicola]?

When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get out. And I did leave, and I stayed away a few years, and I came back, and I've been here ever since.

Where did you go when you left?

The same as Kenneth—out looking for a bigger better life. I wanted something a little more exciting. [Apalachicola], it's a slow country town. I wanted to see the city and all that. I came back. Larry, I guess, was looking for—it's strange, we moved back at the same time. He moved from Washington, and he just happened upon this little town. His sister lived in Georgia, and I think he was driving through maybe the scenic route or something visiting her or a truck route or something and—and he decided he wanted to stay. And so I moved back from where I was at in Louisiana about the same time, and I think we met a year later.

So how about your girls? You think they're going to stick around here?

I don't know. They both live here. Tasha, I think, is probably more content here than Shannon. Shannon is always looking for, you know, an opportunity and stuff like that. She'll do the same thing we did—move away and she'll eventually come back, I know it. I think Tasha will do the same thing. Jasmine says she wants to move to the hills. Mountains, hills, Washington, the Carolinas. She said she wants to move to the mountains because it's—I don't know why. She's ten. [Laughs]

Yeah, well she seems to love being outdoors here.

I think she would be the one that she wouldn't stay very, very long away from home because she loves this water. She is—every day she cast nets, she fishes, she crabs; I mean she's always collecting algae and minnows and anything like that and like they put it under her little microscope and they study it—gator blood. She just loves it all.

She sounds like a little biologist.

She is. That's what she wants. She says she is going to be a biologist of some sort. She is going to find a cure for the red tide, she says…She watched the fish die and she—oh gosh, it was horrible. They swim like they're crazy; their gills fill full of the algae. They can't breathe, so their mouth is open and their gills are flapping and they just—they're splashing in the water. So she caught two that was dying and put it in freshwater, and she stayed there with them and did them back and forth trying to get freshwater in their gills. And she was heartbroken when they died. She cried. We had to make this grass floating thing and put the fish on it and wrap them up and send them out to sea, and that's when she said that she would cure the red tide. That's what she was going to do.

I believe her.

I hope so.

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Well, growing up in the industry and your family having an oyster house and everything, and [you and Larry] staying here in Apalach, what do you think the future of folks who work on the bay is?

I don't think there's much future for them at all really. They're doing everything in their power to close the bay. I really honest to God think that. It started when we were growing up. As far as I know, the bay was not closed for the red tide [when I was growing up]. But in the beginning it wasn't and then they started—everybody knows you don't make much shucking and everybody knows if somebody falls in the oyster house they've never sued, but they—they were doing these workman's comp things and they shut them down and charged them a lot of money and then it was like they were forced to sell and then it—they're closing the bay for reasons that I've never heard of and staying closed longer than it should be. And there are people that are wanting the land for houses. They want the land for condos and stuff like that. I don't think there's any future in it. That was how most everybody made their living was shrimping, oystering, or fishing here, honestly.

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So what would you want people who read this to know about Apalachicola and this area and the way of life that's disappearing?

It is, it is. [Short pause]  I just—I don't know. I just don't understand how they can see that a whole bunch of condos is going to do this place any kind of good. I mean, look at the High Cotton [condominiums] down there; they haven't rented any of them. And they will eventually, but then after you, there is not going to be anything here for the workers. There is really not; as far as the girls that I went to school with, there might be one or two of them here other than myself and that's it. Joey is the same way; and I don't know. They're just—they're going to ruin it. It's going to be another little tourist town with condos and shopping malls and that's it.

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.