New England native moved to island in 1974

Amy Bennett Williams • awilliams@news-press.com • November 17, 2007

news-press.com file photo

Sellars: Loved, learned about shells

Carol Sellars, known to many as the "Shell Lady of Cayo Costa," died yesterday. She was 94.

Frail health forced her to move from her beloved island to an assisted living facility in Fort Myers in 2005, but Sellars never lost her love for shells — or her encyclopedic knowledge of them.

"Even when she'd suffered from some memory loss, you could put some shells on her lap and she's identify every one," said friend and island neighbor Barbara Trescott.
Although Sellars was sometimes called a hermit, she was a warm, friendly person, generous with her knowledge of the island's animals, plants and mollusks.

Born June 13, 1913, in Maine, Sellars was raised in Massachusetts and spent summers on the Maine shoreline, where her interest in shelling, encouraged by her father, developed.
She attended Middlebury College in Vermont and married before graduation. It would be the first of five marriages.

Sellars spent time overseas with the American Red Cross during World War II.

After the war, she moved to Central Florida and finished her degree at Rollins College in 1950. Her teaching career took her to Winter Park, Key West, Pompano Beach and finally to Sanibel in the early 1960s. She also worked for the school system as an itinerant librarian.
A trip to Cayo Costa in 1974 sold Sellars on the island north of Captiva Island and south of Boca Grande — "love at first sight" — she called it.

She and her husband, Max, bought a lot for $25,000, put up a 10-sided, pre-fab house and became part of a handful of island-dwellers; 90 percent of the island is state park.
Although Max died in 1994, Sellars never considered leaving the island, even after the couple had sold her property to the state park, with the provision they be able to live there as long as they choose.

Sellars spent her days beach-walking, shelling, reading and watching the soaps on her generator-powered TV. It was by no means an easy life, but she relished it. Relying on a generator to pump water from the ground and run her window-unit air conditioner, she took the ferry to Pine Island once a week to pick up mail, stock up at the Winn-Dixie and replenish her supply of Early Times bourbon, with which she mixed her Manhattans.

She charmed park rangers, campers, mosquito control pilots and, especially, her neighbors, Barbara and Dan Trescott, who eventually became like family. Sellars never had children.
Barbara Trescott recalls meeting Sellars in 1980.

"We immediately bonded," Trescott said. "She and Max were so hospitable and walking on the beach with her was a musical, lyrical experience."
Sellars was kind and gracious to the end. "The last time I saw her was on my birthday, Nov. 3," Trescott said, "And when I left, she told me, 'Thank you so much for coming.' She always made me feel so grateful to have a friend like her in my life."

While no services are planned for Sellars, memorial contributions in her honor can be made to Help Our State Parks and designated for Cayo Costa State Park. The address is H.O.S.T., P.O. Box 1150, Boca Grande, FL 33921.

— The News-Press archives contributed to this report.