Woman visits 'slave cabin' birthplace, just a place they called home

April 12 (UPI) -- Isabell Meggett Lucas never imagined a homecoming like this.

On Tuesday, the 87-year-old returned to the wood house where her family of 11 lived on Edisto Island, S.C.

Now the two-room "slave cabin" is a centerpiece at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

"I never knew this all would come to pass," she said. "Everybody is excited and happy."

The Point of Pines Cabin, built in 1853, is the only one of 10 remaining. The row originally was owned by a landowner named Charles Bailey, who acquired his wealth through slavery, said Nancy Bercaw, a curator at the museum.

Lucas said she slept in one room with her nine brothers, and her parents used the other room. "It had a porch," she recalled.

But no one ever called it a slave cabin, said Lavern Meggett, a great niece of Lucas. "It was just a place we called 'home.'"

Their story now has a new home. The cabin was given to the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society and eventually passed on to the Smithsonian. It was was taken apart piece by piece and reconstructed exactly as it stood when it was moved to the museum.

"This is the most beautiful thing that could've happened," Bercaw said, "the Meggetts coming forward and visiting us and sharing these stories with us."