I had intended writing about something else but thought it would be a nice diversion to tackle the questions Lynda put to me about growing up in Cayman. She gave me 6 questions of which the first was "How did you keep cool in Cayman?" The answer to that is quite easy: You wore the right kind of clothes (light-colored and loose fitting without too many concessions to sloppiness and ugliness), you designed your house to provide maximum air circulation and built it with the best insulating building material available.

But, before going into the details of what I remember about how that was accomplished, Lynda, let me tell you I did not know what hot was until I came to Port Arthur in 1938. I arrived there around June 30 and sometime in August there was a heat wave. There was no air-conditioning available in those days either except in commercial buildings and electric fans just blew furnace-temperature air around. I was never so hot and miserable. Addie then lived on 14th Street, I believe it was.

I don't know that I can put this in an order that you will get the full appreciation of what was involved in building a home in West Bay before the era of air conditioning, but here goes:

DESIGN:
Homes were built with flooring (wood) elevated approximately 2 feet above the ground. This enabled air to circulate freely under the house and also kept water out of the house. The house was built on ironwood posts set in post-holes about 4 feet apart. The posts were normally about 12' tall and 4" in both width and depth. The outside walls were constructed of white-lime (an excellent insulating material), the ceilings were at least 10' high. Doors and windows were made to provide maximum cross ventilation. Windows were placed in inside walls to accommodate the unimpeded movement of air throughout the house.

Now that you have a general idea of the logic of house construction let me explain what white-lime is and how it was made and used. Cayman lime is actually molten coral rock. My cousin Lee and Aldith Farrington were getting married and Lee had assembled a crew to build their house (where it still is to this day). I remember he had got our grandfather Sammy to supervise certain phases of the work, principally the construction of the lime kiln. He had men go out to the reefs in boats to pry up the coral that was in shallow water and haul the coral to the kiln for burning. Coral was plentiful in my day because there were reefs every 4 to 5 hundred yards along most of the seven mile beach. The reefs were narrow (probably not more than 30 yards wide) and grew in an almost straight line from shallow water near the beach to near the area where ships would anchor in 60' of water. In many of the reefs the coral grew in places to the top of the water in low tide so boats had to be very careful in navigating over reefs, especially at night.

There is a lot of skill involved in building a successful kiln. First, you had to know the quantity of lime that was required; then you had to know how much coral was required to produce that amount of lime. In the building of the kiln itself you had to know how much wood was required based on the time it took to melt the coral as well as how to properly ventilate the kiln. I remember the kiln burned for many days and when it had burned down several days were allowed for it to cool down.

When the day arrived for the movement of the lime to the construction site I recall standing there looking at this mound of grey and dark material on the ground and wondered how the men could get it clean but there was hardly anything to it as it peeled off almost as easily as removing a bed sheet from a mattress and leaving a mount of brilliant white lime which in my memory was about the texture of firm ice cream.

I do not recall what was done to the lime to transform it to a plaster that was then applied to the walls. I also do not remember how the walls were actually constructed to receive the lime plaster but I do have a vision of the 4 walls being wrapped in strips of split wood set in the upright iron wood posts in lattice-like fashion. I believe the wood was red mangrove. I wish I had paid closer attention to how the split wood (called wattles) were fastened to the posts. The lime plaster was daubed into the wattles from inside as well as outside, shaped and smoothed to perfection. After the plaster had dried properly, more lime was used, but this time it was in liquid form and painted on (several coats) inside and outside. This was called white-liming your house and was done periodically through the years (occasionally, the doors, windows, and trim were painted)

I think I have given enough general information on how we kept "cool" and will call it a day. Hope to get on the other 5 questions soon.

GOOD NIGHT,
Walter

2/26/04
10:35PM
End of Installment Eleven