In the 1960s, Claude and Atha retired from the dairy farm and spent from early spring to late fall at the cottage at Carolina Beach. Daughter Gerri says her father practically lived on Fisherman Steel Pier at Carolina Beach, coming home only when his wife demanded he eat or sleep.
In those years he became a member of the Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church and an active member in the life of the local community, often sitting on the benches of the boardwalk and people-watching while Atha played bingo. There used to be a lot of bingo parlors and at one time the boardwalk was right by the ocean in the days before the dunes were established.
They saw Carolina Beach go into decline in the 1950s, which continued through to around 1980, when it started coming back to being the tourist destination it is today.
Claude died in November 1983 and Atha in September 1986.
Gerri Cohen is their last surviving child and currently lives in Wilmington, but still uses the cottage in the summer, sharing it with her extended family. She is a member of the Federal Point Historical Society and generously offered her father's World War I uniform for display during the war's centennial.
--DaCoot
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