The Kiawah Project
Finding Wonder at the Marsh Island Tower
By Adam Fein
H
ere are the stories of
If we did a word count of the entries in Linda’s 21 notebooks, the most frequently
appearing words would be: love, peace, family, beauty, and happy.
20
how people fell in love
with Kiawah Island. It
is the story of how it
became a special place in their lives.
This story would never have happened
if it were not for Linda Keithan Fein.
Linda, a long-time resident and fan
of the Island, contemplated the idea
for years after her son Graham (now
an investment banker in Atlanta) had
the original concept of leaving writing
material and a notebook at the top of
the tower at Marsh Island Park.
After Linda figured out how to keep the
notebooks safe from inclement weather,
she waited excitedly for the first few
entries just before Halloween in 2016. She
observed, “In the beginning, it was hard
not to bike there to see the daily entries.
I had a lot of anticipation to see the early
entries. People were sharing very moving
and personal stories and left very positive
comments. There were haikus, drawings,
paintings, lots of family and personal
insights. I was absolutely shocked at the
depth of material these strangers left me—
bound only by our love of the island.”
From the tugboat captain who works
in a challenging environment just to
be able to vacation on Kiawah every
two years, to the dutiful daughter who
stressfully watches over her mother’s
declining health, to the kids who met
and married, Kiawah Island has always
been a magical place; a place unlike any
other by which to mark our brief and
fragile time on this earth.
The notebook entries are nothing
short of extraordinary. From thousands
of pages and 21 books, we have tried to
include a representative summary.
Naturally Kiawah