Leave your thoughtlessness behind you 

Then you may begin to understand 

Clear the emptiness around you 

With the waving of your hand. 

—Van Morrison (Wonderful Remark) 

Florence Martus: The Waving Girl

She was a legendary Savannahian whose endearing story spread across the oceans; starting here in Savannah to reach every port throughout the world. 

For 44-years of her long life, Florence Martus (1868-1943) became affectionately known in Savannah as ‘The Waving Girl.’  

The actual story has it that Florence lived on Elba Island with her brother, who worked as the lighthouse keeper just like his father did before him.  

Elba Island is a tiny slab of land near the Atlantic Ocean, located on the Savannah River about 5-miles upstream from Fort Pulaski, where Florence’s father long served as an ordinance officer. 

Beginning as a young girl, Florence took it upon herself to become the unofficial greeter to all ships reaching and leaving the port at Savannah.  

In the daylight she would wave a large white handkerchief. At night she used a bright lantern that was easily seen by any merchant ship sailing up and down the river. 

In return, a ship Captain would often salute her effort with a loud blast from his ship’s horn. 

The ‘legend’ of Florence Martus tells the sad tale of a ‘lost love’ with a sailor who never returned. 

Whether you prefer the romantic legend or merely accept her lovely but straightforward story, it is well-known that Florence continued her daily waving for 44-years. Some have calculated that she greeted over 50,000 ships over her lifetime. 

In 1943, the year she died, a Liberty Ship was built in Savannah and dedicated to Miss Martus. Today, you can find her grave next to her brother’s in Laurel Grove Cemetery. 

In 1974, Felix De Weldon, the sculptor of the infamous United States Marine Corps Memorial of the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima located near Arlington, Virginia, created a beautiful statue honoring Florence Martus at the bequest of Mills B. Lane, a prominent Savannah philanthropist.  

Felix De Weldon’s 17-foot tall statue of Florence, carved in Swedish-granite, shows her waving a large handkerchief with her dog nearby. It stands in Morell Park located on Savannah’s historic riverfront. 

Around the very same time-period that Martus was waving, but on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Richard Le Gallienne, an English poet who lived near the port in Liverpool wrote: “Nature is forever arriving and forever departing, forever approaching, forever vanishing; but in her vanishings there seems to be ever the waving of a hand, in all her partings a promise of meetings farther along the road.” 

Such a poetic sentiment is one that Florence Martus likely shared and well understood.