ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Wally Low started tearing up the minute he started down the grassy slope to the pier to see a party honoring him and his family in full swing.

“I’m a little emotional,” he said with his Australian accent. “I had absolutely no idea. The emotion of the property and the house and the changes. I have lots of memories all up and down this place.”

Wally left this area when he was six when his dad, Hubert Low, pulled up stakes to move to Australia.

“In 1967 Hubert got tired of other fishermen running up on his spots and Orange Beach was getting too crowded so he left and went to Australia,” surprise party host Greg Leatherbury later said.

Wally is a descendant of the Low family, a pioneer family to Orange Beach. According to a city proclamation later read by Mayor Tony Kennon, the family owned the first car here and was the first to cut and use the path that would become Canal Road.

“Hubert Low’s father and grandfather owned 210 acres at Bear Point and when it got down to Hubert I think he owned about 40 acres and part of it was this property you are looking at, which is 12 and a half acres and 303 feet,” Leatherbury said. “His house was right where my house is and he ran the charter boat right over there.”

Wally came back to soak in a few memories of his parents, Hubert who died in 2011 and Margaret who died in 2008. It was his quest to revisit the old home place and scatter their ashes off of the end of the pier along the shores he spent his early childhood.

“All I wanted to do was see the old house,” Wally said. “I wanted to walk down the old wharf. This is just unbelievable. I have some great memories. My parents, in my view were unbelievable.”

It was Leatherbury’s quest to make that event as special and memorable as possible.

Judging from the tears of joy from Wally, his efforts were glowingly successful.

“Wally called Miss Margaret Childress Long to see if she knew who owned the property,” Leatherbury said. “He asked her to see if it would be OK for him to spread the ashes for his mother and father off the end of my pier in Bayou St. John. I said ‘sure, absolutely.’”

Then he started thinking about Wally, the family legacy and an old sign that had been in his garage since he bought the place in 1980.

“I told Miss Margaret ‘I’ve still got his daddy’s old sign and we can surprise him with the sign,’” Leatherbury said. “That’s kind of how this idea for the whole party got started, to plan a big surprise for him.”

Then he sought food for the event, provided graciously by Jim Hutto of Gulfgate Restaurant. The Flora-Bama provided beverages and local entertainer Top Hat even wrote an original song just to honor the Low family legacy.

And Kennon was on hand to read the key to the city proclamation and declare June 21 as Hubert M. Low day in Orange Beach. Print, television and internet media were on hand to cover the event.

“It just grew and snowballed,” Leatherbury said. “It’s just turned into a Hubert M. Low celebration.”