Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

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Joye and Cindy – established themselves in the heart of
East Cooper as farmers of produce and grain from the
1950s until the 1990s. Douglas, Alec, Clayton and George
were instrumental in the business – but they also had a
little help from their friends, as the song goes.
Born in Georgia and raised in Mount Pleasant,
Douglas recalled his earliest days when his dad worked for
Seaboard Coast Line Railroad as a fireman and “would
travel between Savannah
and Charleston.” A new
opportunity awaited the
family when Iva’s uncle, who
owned the land now known
as Wakendaw Lakes, needed
help farming and broached
the idea of a partnership with
Alva. The rest, as they say, is
Mount Pleasant history.
“We initially worked out
of a four-room shack located
where Stuhr Funeral Home
is now,” Douglas Heath said.
“We started out with one mule – a huge mule named Julia
– plus a very small tractor and a sled. We’d load the sled
and drag it around.”
Back in those days, the 1950s, both Mathis Ferry and
Bowman Road were dirt roads, according to Heath. And
even the site of the former Wando High School building, at
the corner of Mathis Ferry and Whipple roads, was nothing
more than a lush grove of pecan trees. The Heath family,
making good use of the available land, farmed among those
very pecan trees until the school was built in 1973.
“Where the Live to Play swimming pool and tennis
facilities are now, that’s where our largest packing
house was from the late 1960s on,” Heath explained.
“Our original packing house, located where Riverwood
Apartments are now, had been burned, and the second one
was built at 1503 Mathis Ferry Road. The house and shed
are still there.”
Eventually, Douglas Heath’s son, Douglas L. Heath,
was introduced into the family business. He and his
mother, who taught at Wando High School, were original
Warriors.
“I’ve lived here all my
life,” the younger Doug
Heath remarked. “Not
many people know how
Mount Pleasant used to be.”
Students from the new
Wando High School as well
as from Bishop England
High School, proved to
be a welcome source of
labor for the Heaths. Even
maintaining the packing
house was entirely too
much work for the family to accomplish alone. Business
was thriving, and Alva and sons stayed busy farming many
areas along Mathis Ferry – the current sites of I’On, Olde
Park and Point Pleasant, to name a few – as well as along
Long Point Road and in McClellanville.
“We would hire at least a hundred local students to help
us pack,” Douglas Heath remembered. “We would also
hire locals from Snowden as our tractor drivers. And we’d
have crews from Immokalee, Florida. We had a number of
migrant workers helping as well. When the crews would
leave Mount Pleasant, they’d head up the Eastern seaboard
and continue working other farms.”
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Left: Douglas M. Heath’s family began farming in Mount Pleasant in the early 1950s.
Right: Douglas L. Heath with his grandparents, Alva and Iva Heath.