William Griffin’s uncle, John Motley’s father, were guards in 1920s, ’30s
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City natives John Motley and William Griffin loved going to the Fifth Street beach as kids. What Motley didn’t realize until later in life was that his dad was a guard at that beach.
He found a photograph of his father, also named John, and Griffin’s uncle, Alvin Thompson, in their uniforms on the beach.
“I didn’t find out about this until later on. I wish I had known when I was younger,” Motley said.
According to Ocean City Beach Patrol historian Fred Miller, a retired longtime guard in the resort, Thompson was the first Black lifeguard on the beach patrol, becoming a rookie in 1928. Motley was a rookie guard in 1934.
In one of Miller’s books on Ocean City history, he shared a photo that carried this caption: “The first African American lifeguard on the Ocean City Beach Patrol was Alvin Thompson. He was on the patrol from 1928, the date of this picture, through the summer of 1937. No one ever drowned on his watch, although many of his rescues were so dramatic they were reported in the local newspaper. In August 1930, he was voted the most outstanding guard of the week by the Ocean City Real Estate Board and given a $10 award.”
That photo showed a lineup of the guards in their beach attire. Miller also had a page with the personnel all dressed up in their dress uniforms under Captain Jack G. Jernee with guards that included Thompson and Motley and a young Fenton Carey.
Motley and Griffin said they always went to the Fifth Street beach.
“It was like Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City,” Motley said. “Fifth Street was our beach.”
Chicken Bone Beach was designated as an exclusively African American beach from the days of segregation. It remained Blacks only until the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed under the Johnson Administration.
Motley and Griffin loved their Ocean City beach.
“It was altogether different. We went to the beach as kids,” Motley said. “I remember because I grew up on Seventh Street and it was right around the corner. I could go to the beach at 6 or 7 years old and all the other people would look out for you.
“We would hang out on the Fifth Street beach and that was our beach. We did that for years,” he said.
Griffin, who was born in 1942, is a lifelong resident of Ocean City. Motley was born and raised on the island as well, but moved to Egg Harbor Township in 1990. They both have family on the island.
“It was great” growing up in Ocean City, Griffin said. “We used to dive off the boardwalk into the ocean,” Motley added. “We grew up around the water. You could see how high the boardwalk was,” he said, pointing to an old photograph from years ago. “As a kid I wouldn’t trade it. I had a great childhood. Back then it was great.
“We were under the boardwalk. We weren’t out in the sun,” Motley said, drawing a laugh from Griffin. “We’d be under the boardwalk where it was nice and cool.”
“Our families have been here for over a hundred years,” Motley said. “My grandfather came here when my father was a child. My uncles and aunts were born here.” He pegged his family arriving in the resort between 1915 and 1920.
“Our families have been around here for a long, long time,” Griffin said.
Griffin and Motley talked about the many long-time Black families in Ocean City, including the Stewarts, the Harmons, Turners, Henrys, Wrights and Browns.
They said they liked the neighborhood where they grew up and what it had to offer them, from the restaurant and gas station to a pool room and playground. They also had fun with youth sports.
Griffin said he learned how to swim at the old Ocean City High School. “Fenton Carey had a swimming team. I used to go swimming down to the high school on Saturdays. We had the pool inside the school,” Griffin said. He also remembered Dick Grimes, a local legend in youth sports whose name is on the sports field complex at Sixth Street.
Together they cited Dixie Howell, another sporting legend in the resort.
“In summer, Dixie Howell had a program called morning sports,” Motley recalled. “As little kids we got up and played basketball for half of the summer and baseball for the other half. Dixie’s sons would coach us and teach us how to play basketball and baseball.
“A lot of guys would come down from Pennsylvania and we’d play together all summer long. It was great, something to look forward to,” he added. “We’d get up early in the morning because it would start early at 9 o’clock in the summertime.”
Motley, who was born in 1956, pulled out a photograph of a group of boys holding trophies.
“We played for The Chatterbox,” he said. “It’s a long, long time ago. Our coach was Mike Allegretto. We were the champions. We beat everybody in Cape May County. We would play Stone Harbor, Court House and Cape May, Villas, Avalon. We played the same teams as the Hawks in football. This was in the ’60s. You see how little I was.”
He said the traveling basketball team was the counterpart to the traveling football team, the Hawks. “We played basketball and football,” he said. “It was fun.”
Other memories
Griffin served in the National Guard for six years when the guard had a station at 18th Street and Bay Avenue. “We had three guns in there, Howitzers. We were Battery C,” Griffin said. “Atlantic City was headquarters, A Battery, Tuckerton was B Battery and Ocean City was C Battery.”
They vividly remembered the storm of 1962 that battered Ocean City.
“I was only 6 years old but I remember everything. It was that traumatic,” Motley said. “I was born in 1956 and this was in 1962. I’ll never forget that storm.”
He recalled the flood waters being over the top of parking meters. “They had a tank that got stuck over at Seventh and West. They were coming down trying to rescue people and the tank got stuck. It was something else,” he said, remembering “swings and monkey bars floating down the middle of West Avenue.”
After the storm, Griffin, who was older, found a lot to do.
“I started working with my uncle after the ’62 storm, putting in piling. We did the 14th Street Fishing Pier, did the work at Carey’s Real Estate which used to be at 15th Street,” he said. He also did work for Warren North and for former mayor Roy Gillian, who founded Wonderland Pier.
Motley graduated with Roy’s late son, Jimmy Gillian, in 1974. “We went to school together. He was a nice kid,” Motley said.
Son John Motley, right, and Thompson’s nephew William Griffin.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
It should be mentioned that the beaches were segregated. Fifth Street beach was the only beach African Americans could swim in. Alvin Thompson is my great Uncle.