Greenville & Hockessin Life Summer 2023

Greenville & Hockessin Life Summer 2023

Letter

from the Editor:

One of the stories in this issue of Greenville & Hockessin Life looks at how the du Pont family continues to make a huge impact on Delaware’s economy, politics, and culture. Earlier this year, Longwood Gardens, which was founded by Pierre S. du Pont to preserve an arboretum, announced that it is purchasing and preserving Granogue. In “The Preservationists,” writer Ken Mammarella details how Granogue will be the latest example of how du Ponts, nonprofits and governments protect local lands and waterways.

The Q & A in this issue is Glenn Gunter, president of the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club. Greenville & Hockessin Life met with Gunter at the club’s studio in a business park on Yorklyn Road to talk about the magic of model railroading and the longtime dedication of the club’s members.

Continued on Page 9

Photographer Jim Coarse also decided to make the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club the subject of this edition’s photo essay.

This issue also features a look at the history—and the future—of the Brandywiners, which has been entertaining audiences for decades. The group is looking to increase its offerings in the future.

Gene Pisasale, a local writer and historian, offers a story about Hockessin and its historic significance. The story also highlights the work of the Hockessin Historical Society, which helps preserve Hockessin’s history.

We also offer a behind-the-scenes look at Cokesbury Village’s white elephant sales.

We hope that you enjoy these stories, and as always we welcome your comments and suggestions for stories for an upcoming issue of Greenville & Hockessin Life. We’re already hard at work planning the next issue, which will arrive later in 2023. Sincerely,

Cover design: Tricia Hoadley

Cover photo: Jie Deng

The Preservationists The Preservati

Preservationists

in northern Delaware

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

The du Pont family has had huge impacts on Delaware’s economy, politics and culture. Less famous are the legacies of the descendants of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont – who described himself as a botanist when he emigrated from France – on the local environment.

Their impact is best illustrated in the rolling hills northwest of Wilmington, nicknamed Chateau Country for its grand (du Pont) estates, with much of the impact marked off in a map prepared by the Brandywine Conservancy (Page 14), which was co-founded by George A. “Frolic” Weymouth, whose mother was a du Pont. The colored areas of the map mark various kinds of protection.

The conservancy’s campus has a landmark museum on Route 1 in Chadds Ford, and its land and other protected land (colored light green) spread south along the Brandywine into Delaware. To the east is First State National Historical Park, in dark green.

Also light green are Winterthur (once Henry Francis du Pont’s estate) and the Bidermann Golf Club (once Henry’s private golf course). Also key are the Mt. Cuba Center (once the home of Lammot du Pont Coepland and his wife Pamela, not on the map) and the Ashland Nature Center (also off the map) and Coverdale Farm Preserve (partly shown on the left of the map), of the Delaware Nature Society.

“Preservation has always been a cornerstone” at Winterthur, said CEO Chris Strand. “Our board of trustees has defined our

The preservation of Granogue is the latest example of how the du Pont family, nonprofits and local governments are protecting lands and waterways

Photo by Jim Graham, courtesy of Longwood Gardens Longwood Gardens is preserving Granogue, a former du Pont family estate. Continued on Page 12

The preservation of Granogue is the latest example of how the du Pont family, nonprofits and local governments are protecting lands and waterways in northern Delaware

The Preservationists

Continued from Page 11

strategy this way: “‘It is Winterthur’s policy to conserve this design for posterity while recognizing the elements of change inherent in living organisms.’ ”

Parks and other preserved public land, in light blue, include Brandywine Creek State Park (once a du Pont family dairy farm), Alapocas Run State Park and Rockford Park south of Hagley, Valley Garden Park (donated by Ellen du Pont Wheelwright) and Hoopes Reservoir west of Hagley and Flint Woods Preserve (sold to the state at a discount by Lucille du Pont Flint and north of Winterthur).

Country clubs with lots of plantings are tan, including the Wilmington Country Club (more of Henry’s land, with the club maintaining an orchard that dates to 1932) and the DuPont Country Club (for 98 years a club owned by the company and since 2018 now co-owned by Ben du Pont and Don Wirth) and the Brandywine Country Club (likely to be developed).

The future for Granogue

The biggest influence not named du Pont is William Poole Bancroft, who combined the money from his milling business and his caring for society from his Quaker values to create Woodlawn Trustees. Woodlawn once owned the Beaver Valley Tract that forms most of the national park.

Woodlawn also owned the 270-acre Beaver Valley property (in burgundy on the map), and Bancroft and Woodlawn donated land for Alapocas Run, Brandywine Creek and Rockford parks.

In the middle of all this preserved land is a label for Granogue, another du Pont estate, along Smith Bridge Road. In February, Longwood Gardens (founded by Pierre S. du Pont to preserve an arboretum) announced that it is purchasing and preserving Granogue.

“This acquisition ensures that its forests, meadows and agricultural lands forever remain a pastoral landscape,” Longwood said on Facebook when it announced the arrangement.

Irénée “Brip” du Pont Jr. (E.I.’s great-great-grandson) lived on the 505-acre Granogue with his wife, Barbie. Although Longwood and the du Ponts started talking in 2016 about the deal, the closure process could take up to a year from the announcement.

“We have no immediate plans to activate the property,” Longwood spokeswoman Patricia Evans said. “This acquisition, when finalized, is first and foremost an act of conservation.”

Granogue, besides the famed mansion, has lots of acreage actively farmed for corn, soy, hay and dairy production, with large sections of forest, pasture and meadow.

“Preserving an extraordinary property for enjoyment for all of us,” Ben du Pont wrote on Facebook.

Bigger is better

Land preservation is the antithesis of development, but preserved land is still used by humans in multiple, limited ways, such as farming and recreation. Land is preserved to benefit the flora and fauna that live there, and it also benefits the humans who drink and use the water that flows through it.

University of Delaware professor Doug Tallamy came up with the concept of a “homegrown national park,” where united individual homeowners create large beneficial landscapes.

Larger tracts offer better benefits, experts agree. “Contiguous habitat – aka properties that touch each other – is essential to conservation because it creates safe passage for animals that live there,” Mt. Cuba writes on a page on its site titled “Protecting Natural Lands.” The page says that Mt. Cuba has protected 13,000 acres in the mid-Atlantic, via funding and partnerships.

Delaware started protecting public lands in 1927, with the creation of Redden State Forest. The 1990 Delaware Land Protection Act set up the Open Space Program to conserve lands “with the best natural resources, cultural resources and

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For several years, Winterthur has sicced goats on areas where invasive shrub-layer plants have taken over. “Although our goats can’t discern between native versus non-native plants, the act of defoliation and damage to the non-natives suppresses the populations’ reproductive success,” a 2017 Winterthur blog reported.

Photo courtesy of Winterthur

The Preservationists

outdoor recreation value,” said spokeswoman Shauna McVey. Since then, 65,124 acres have been preserved, with a focus on land near or next to state parks.

“We are managing to create a diversity of habitats to support a wide range of species native to the area and that migrate through the area,” said Jeff Downing, executive director of Mt. Cuba Center.

“It’s hard to partition conservation,” he said, referring to purple martins, whose migratory range includes much of North and South America.

“Our bigger mission is to inspire the community to appreciate the value and beauty of native plants and help participate in conservation,” he said. Mt. Cuba also helped with funding to buy Granogue.

What Mt. Cuba Center does (and does not)

Mt. Cuba, which opened to the public in 2013, merged in 2018 with the Red Clay Reservation, a nonprofit started by neighbor H.B du Pont in the 1960s. Mt. Cuba manages 1,000plus acres, some in its impressive gardens around the main house, but most a series of natural environments.

Management takes multiple forms. The most obvious involves planting, such as the stretches where saplings are growing to expand the forest, a patch where chestnut trees are being studied for their ability to fight blight and a 10-acre tract where this year they planted 24 million seeds of 39 native species to create a natural-looking meadow to support pollinators.

Management also involves the removal of evasive plants, mostly by hand and with the spot treatment assistance of herbicides. Removals can be more dramatic, such as a now-eliminated hedgerow that expanded a meadow and immediately drew more ground-nesting birds, such as northern harriers, red-winged blackbirds and sparrows.

Removals can be less dramatic, such as harvesting hay, and selling it for use elsewhere, which strategically reduces nitrogen accumulated when the fields were intensely farmed, Downing said.

Management also involves monitoring. Every few years, Mt. Cuba assesses the flora at 84 spots. And surveys of fauna have found 15 species of native bees not previously known to occur in Delaware, including the Jacob’s ladder miner bee, 365 miles from its nearest known population.

Sometimes management involves doing nothing. Stumps of dead trees are left in the ground as habitats for insects and other creatures, and brush piles on land and even in the water provide homes for small mammals, like rabbits, and fish.

“It’s easy to forget or take for granted the beauty of our region,” said Stephanie Sturmfels, marketing manager for the Delaware Nature Society. ”The pandemic highlighted how important places to spend time in nature are to so many people.”

Brandywine Conservancy map courtesy of Mt. Cuba Center This Brandywine Conservancy map shows how wide swaths of northwestern New Castle County have been preserved by multiple groups.

Tulip Courtesy of Delaware State Parks Trees Woods Nature Preserve, named for its old-growth tulip poplars, is surrounded by a 3-foot stone wall. A loop trail is for pedestrians only.

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Our Preservationists, and what they are doing

Brandywine Conservancy: The conservancy holds more than 510 conservation and agricultural easements and has facilitated the permanent preservation of over 70,200 acres – including over 1,900 acres in Delaware, which mostly support farming. The group, based in Chadds Ford, is a leader on the Brandywine Creek Greenway, a 40-mile conservation and recreation corridor along both branches of the Brandywine, boasting over 36,000 acres of protected open space.

Delaware Nature Society: The society manages nearly 2,000 acres in Delaware, including 1,400 in New Castle County. Some properties can be explored only on programs; others have trail access daily dawn to dusk. One key tract: Coverdale Farm Preserve, near Greenville, with 200 acres of restored native meadows, forest and stream valley, plus a 177-acre farm. Volunteers help monitor nearly 200 nest boxes, participate in tree planting, control invasive plants and help with other activities. Areas protected for the long term protect waterways that supply drinking water to thousands and “mitigate against the impacts of climate change by reducing flooding, supporting wildlife, sequestering carbon and reducing temperatures,” said marketing manager Stephanie Sturmfels.

Delaware State Parks: The division manages more than 2,000 acres in northwestern New Castle County, including Alapocas Run and Wilmington state parks (521 acres), Auburn Valley State Park (471), Brandywine Creek State Park (955), Flint Woods Nature Preserve (143 of the preserve’s 217) and Tulip Tree Woods Nature Preserve (24). Brandywine Creek’s rolling meadows provide habitat to native pollinators, ground-nesting birds and rare native plants. Those “open meadows are excellent for picnics, kite flying, and disc golf, and in the winter, for sledding and cross-country skiing,” the park’s website says, noting the park maintains trails for fitness, wildlife observation and photography; stocks Wilson’s Creek with fish; runs

canoeing and other interpretive programs; and hosts outfitters that rent canoes, kayaks and tubes for rides down the Brandywine.

First State National Historical Park: The Beaver Valley tract east of the Brandywine covers 1,100 acres, some farmed, with miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Woodlawn Trustees developed the trails and amenities when it owned that land, and it still owns a lot of acreage to the east.

Longwood Gardens: The gardens cover 1,100 acres, with 750 in forests, fields, streams, meadows and wetlands, and of that, 100 acres that can be explored via trails. The acreage supports more than 200 species of birds and more than 760 species of native plants. Longwood researches environmental change and tests land management practices. It is also taking over the 505-acre Granogue estate.

Mt. Cuba Center: Mt. Cuba conserves more than 1,000 acres of natural lands – including meadows, forests, streams and riparian corridors – surrounding its manicured gardens. Its long-term plan includes moving its main entrance to Old Wilmington Road, for easier access for buses. Trails cross the natural lands, with benches for resting and water-bottle-filling stations for hydration. The center has been involved in protecting more than 13,000 acres in the mid-Atlantic.

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library: Winterthur’s 978 acres are protected by an easement with the Brandywine Conservancy, with half naturalized meadow and a fifth woodland. Founder Henry Francis du Pont “loved the rolling hills of the Brandywine and intended to preserve them so that people could enjoy them,” said CEO Chris Strand. “The garden is crisscrossed with paths that encourage exploration. And we offer walks and programs that equip people to explore the landscape.”

Photo by Jim White, courtesy of the Delaware Nature Society

The Delaware Nature Society’s Coverdale Farm Preserve includes 200 acres of restored native meadows, forest and stream valley, plus a 177-acre farm.

Glenn Gunter

Glenn Gunter

Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club

Since its beginning in 1994, the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club has brought together a spirit of invention, collaboration and camaraderie that continues to embellish the memories of childhood, and create entire villages out of plastic, wood and imagination.

Recently, Greenville & Hockessin Life met with Club President Glenn Gunter at the Club’s studio in a business park on Yorklyn Road to talk about the magic of model railroading, the long-time dedication of the Club’s members, and a very special dinner party that Gunter would love to host.

Continued on Page 20

Photo by Jim Coarse Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club President Glenn Gunter, far right, with other Club members, from left, Alex Satinskas, Bill Ebling, Lloyd Thayer and Paul Welsh.

Greenville & Hockessin Life Q & A

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Greenville & Hockessin Life: How many members do you currently have in the Club?

We have about two dozen regular members, who range in age from 16 to those in their early 80s.

Talk about the mutual connections that helped to form the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club 29 years ago.

Gunter: I think it stems from a love of trains and railroads. We’re the kind of people who when we are forced to sit in our cars waiting for a train to go by at a railroad crossing, we’re not very upset. Like so many of our fellow model railroad enthusiasts, most of us first received train sets as a Christmas gift, or were introduced to the hobby by our fathers.

In many ways, the early love that I cultivated for trains never left me and it became a career, as I spent several years working for the CSX Railroad – first as a signal operator, then in the mechanical department. CSX serves the East Coast from New England to Florida and west to Chicago, and also includes New Orleans.

Describe how you received your first model railroad set. I was born in August of 1953, and my mother won a train set that December at a drug store in Newport, and we had that train set for as long as I can remember. I was also the beneficiary of my father, who began collecting trains in the 1940s. I came from a family who worked for the railroad. My grandfather worked as a conductor, my aunt was a clerk, and I had two uncles who worked briefly for the railroad while they were in college.

Taking up nearly every available space in this studio is perhaps the Club’s greatest piece of imagination: The Northern Delaware Railroad. It begins at the Port of Wilmington and travels westward through Maryland and ends in Strasburg, Virginia. Describe how the route was originally designed.

The original idea was to make it a coal carrier railroad that would begin in the coal country of Virginia and then bring it up to Wilmington. Over the years, we’ve made significant upgrades in design and scenery, but the original concept has remained mostly the same.

The Northern Delaware Railroad may be one that is confined to the group’s creative design, but are there ever

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moments when you wish to disappear into that invented world of innovation and invention, when the railroad industry was first being developed?

Most of us grew up during the time when steam engines were still being used, and when I visit a railroad now and see the old steam engines – or when I see a steam train pull into a station in an old movie -- I think it would have been cool to have lived in a time when steam locomotion was just a normal part of life.

Every model railroad enthusiast is committed to several aspects of definition: Designer, historian, engineer, builder and artist. Which of these roles do you enjoy the most?

I think I enjoy designing scenery the most – making the rivers, the mountains, the hills and the trees.

Is there a large-scale project that the Club is currently working on at the moment? If so, would you care to share a little bit about it?

One of the larger projects we’ve completed has been the installation of signals a few years ago. Much like at a real railroad station, a dispatcher at the Club can actually align switches from a centralized computer.

Does the Club host open houses for the community to visit the studio?

We usually schedule them in November during Model Railroad Month. We also set up our trains at Auburn Heights for their Train Day, as well as at a large model railroad show at the Chase Center in Wilmington. Those who are interested can learn more by visiting our website.

There will likely be many local residents of Greenville, Hockessin and Yorklyn reading this article who may be interested in getting started with model railroading, either for themselves or with their children or grandchildren. What advice do you have for those who are taking their first steps?

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Greenville & Hockessin Life Q & A

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Have a plan. You don’t want to go buying pieces and components that you don’t need right away. I would also advise that he or she chooses a particular era of railroading, which will help consolidate the pieces and models – steam or diesel, for instance. Many of the people we know through the Club began with a small layout and then they got hooked on a particular timeframe, a particular railroad and even a specific location – sometimes where they grew up.

How important is it for a new model railroad enthusiast to have someone beside them, such as an experienced consultant?

It helps sometimes, but you can also find so much “How-To” information on YouTube.

What is your favorite spot in the Greenville and Hockessin area?

I have been volunteering at Auburn Heights for some

time, and I have always enjoyed being there.

You host a dinner party and can invite anyone –famous or not, living or not. Who would you like to see around that table?

I would like to invite some of the old railroad tycoons. When you look at the men who built America, you think of people like Mellon and Carnegie, and I think it would be interesting to have them around the table.

What item can always be found in your refrigerator? I seem to always have hot dogs in my refrigerator.

The Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club is located at 722 Yorklyn Road, Suite 201, Hockessin, Del. To learn more, visit www.nordelmodelrr.org, or email president@ nordelmodelrr.org.

- Richard L. Gaw

A NEW TUNE FOR

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

The Brandywiners Second Stage production of Ragtime in March was both an homage to the Brandywiners’ founders and a glimpse into their future.

The homage came from the location: the Laird Performing Arts Center at Tatnall School, named for W.W. “Chick” Laird and Frances Tatnall, who co-founded the Brandywiners in 1932.

The glimpse is more complex. Performances were indoors in the spring, on a lesser scale (but still with a full-size Model T) for a group known for big summer musicals outdoors at Longwood Gardens.

“It’s a shift of thinking,” said Jeff Santoro, the show’s director and the group’s president. “Doing just one program a year is not sustainable.”

The Brandywiners want to increase their offerings, profile, collaborations and financial support.

Continued on Page 26

Photo courtesy of the Brandywiners Brandywiners co-founder Chick Laird kneeling in front of co-founder Frances Tatnall.

Eileen Zerbe photo courtesy of the Brandywiners

The 2022 production of The Wizard of Oz at Longwood Gardens. The Brandywiners return to Longwood in July with Oliver!

Jump

The Brandywiners

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Santoro debuted with the Brandywiners in 1994 as a “flashlight boy,” guiding performers as they safely navigate their way offstage. Since then, he’s volunteered in multiple ways and figures he devotes 35 hours each week to the group as its president.

Some of that time is in leadership, using his skills developed as a manager at Nemours Children’s Health System, and before that in multiple jobs at Disney and the U.S. Coast Guard. Some of that is in mundane work, like delivering Wizard of Oz costumes to a local high school because the Brandywiners since the pandemic have struggled to find volunteers.

They vowed to do better

The origin of the Brandywiners began when Tatnall was disappointed in the quality of an operetta that she had seen and boasting that she and her friends could do better. She enlisted Laird (a 22-year-old college student) to direct The Pirates of Penzance. He asked his uncle, Pierre S. du Pont, if they could perform it at Longwood Gardens.

They stuck with operettas and comic operas until 1954, when they branched out into Broadway musicals with Brigadoon. The Brandywiners echoed its concept – it’s the story of a

Photo courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library Pierre S. du Pont (with hat) at the Brandywiners’ 1948 production of The Vagabond King.

Photo courtesy of the Brandywiners

A rehearsal for Brigadoon in 1954, its debut for the Brandywiners. The group repeated the classic musical several times.

mysterious village that appears for only one day every 100 years – by producing it every 10 years through 1994.

They paused on the encores because attendance for its extravaganzas was falling from a thousand people each night to 400 or 500 because fans of the arts were enjoying a wealth of new and different offerings. Over the last 15 years or so, Santoro said, only four shows have been profitable.

But if Ragtime is considered successful, he hopes the group could also add a third annual production, a concert with minimal staging, and he thinks Brigadoon would be a great fit for 2024.

Other possibilities include performances downstate, so there’s a budget for buses to transport the cast of Oliver! for popups beyond its July 26-29 run at Longwood.

Members are seeking a multi-use facility that the Brandywiners can lease for classes, rehearsals, performances and other activities.

All along, they have received huge support in ticketing, marketing and logistics from Longwood.

“Without Longwood, the Brandywiners would not exist,” Santoro said.

Vision, mission and values

During the pandemic, the volunteers who led the nonprofit thought like a business to craft vision, mission and values statements. They also decided to “take a stand on how the arts can play a positive role in today’s issues,” Santoro said, by making posts on the company’s website and social media.

Continued

Photo courtesy of the Brandywiners The orchestra plays while the fountains are flowing in the 1966 production of Kismet.

The Brandywiners

Continued from Page 27

Statements involve “live theatre and music for future generations,” “diverse artists,” “year-round programming” and “a social-cause focus to support the broader arts community,” plus commitments to “all three counties of Delaware and beyond” and “collaboration among arts organizations.”

Those future generations include the Brandywiners themselves. Dianne and Ted Meyermann met in the 1966 production of Kismet, and their daughter, Carrie Naylor, has also become involved. Jamie Fleetwood debuted with the Brandywiners in 1963, and her “favorite memories are of sharing the beautiful Longwood stage with my two wonderful granddaughters.

The history of the Brandywiners is mostly about people, but it also involves animals. Tina Sheing recalls the horse in the 1992 production of Oklahoma! and the dogs that were adopted for the 2014 production of Annie. Sheing has been involved in more than 25 Brandywiners productions since she debuted in 1987, and she’s directing Oliver! this year.

The group already has the Brandywiners Chorale (60 singers presenting 30 concerts a year) and the Brandywiners Notables (a concert choir of 20). Both perform songs from Broadway and beyond.

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Photo courtesy of the Brandywiners

A 1960 rehearsal of The Desert Song.

The Brandywiners

Continued from Page 28

“Our presence is growing in Delaware,” Santoro said, noting that the audience at Longwood is 65 percent from Delaware and that the Chorale performed for President Joe Biden at a 2022 Veterans Day ceremony near New Castle, and has performed at Wilmington Blue Rocks games as well.

The Brandywiners are a Delaware nonprofit, registered out of a post office box in Montchanin. They have an endowment but few physical assets. They rent storage units for lighting equipment and other supplies, and Santoro keeps the temperature-sensitive makeup in his own home.

The Brandywiners have about 700 members, and their 2022 production of The Wizard of Oz featured 66 performers and about as many people working backstage and ushering. The $96,000 budget included $20,000 for costumes (traditionally, all costumes that aren’t rented are donated to Tatnall) and money to pay for about 30 people contracted to lead various activities and provide music.

Through its life, the Brandywiners have helped support other local arts and aids organizations, donating more than $1 million over the years. It’s lately been giving away $15,000 to $20,000 a year, Santoro said, and to help with its growing programming

and largesse, it has started to apply for grants from foundations, corporations and individual donors. And all along, they uphold a motto from Laird and Tatnall: “All for fun, and fun for all.”

Wedding & Special Event Venue

Photo courtesy of the Brandywiners Brandywiners President Jeff Santoro, shown with Kate Wright, as the title star of Shrek in 2016.

ChristianaCareGoHealth Urgent Care opens

Access to high-quality urgent care is now more convenient than ever for residents in the Greenville area, as ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care has opened its newest location at Barley Mill Plaza, at 360 Buckley Mill Road, Suite B, near Wegmans Food Market.

With the opening of this site, ChristianaCareGoHealth Urgent Care now has ten convenient locations in Delaware and two in Maryland.

“We’re excited to be expanding in the Greenville community,” said Sharon Kurfuerst, Ed.D, OTR/L, FACHE, system chief operating officer at ChristianaCare and president of ChristianaCare, Union Hospital. “By increasing access to urgent care services throughout the region, we can make a positive impact on the health of more people who count on ChristianaCare-GoHealth for the high quality, affordable care near where they live and work.”

ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care’s Greenville center offers treatment for non-lifethreatening illnesses and injuries, on-site X-ray services, COVID-19 testing, and sports physicals for kids just in time for summer camps and sports seasons.

It serves the community from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Those seeking care can be seen quickly and easily by walking into any ChristianaCare-GoHealth

Urgent Care center or going online to save a spot and pre-register. Patients may also connect with a ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care provider remotely with a virtual visit using their smartphone, computer or tablet.

“Access to on-demand care that is personalized and connected to the overall health journey is crucial to building healthy communities,” said Robert Malizia, M.D., regional president, GoHealth Urgent Care. “Our centers provide care that is available when and where patients need it, at a lower cost and without hassle or having to sacrifice quality. We are thrilled to expand Greenville’s access to our on-demand services in Barley Mill Plaza as it continues to grow, welcoming new multifamily housing, restaurants, retail and green spaces.”

Conveniently located at the crossroads of Route 141 (Centre Road) and Route 48 (Lancaster Pike), the new center builds on ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care’s commitment to placing urgent care centers in high-traffic hubs for effortless access.

In addition to providing a new health care option for New Castle County, ChristianaCareGoHealth Urgent Care’s new center in Greenville is expected to create up to eight jobs for health professionals.

For a full list of ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care locations, visit gohealthuc.com/ christianacare.

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To walk and dream in beauty

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

“My true joy has always been my interaction with humans. I love to touch humans. I love to hold them, feel warmth and to accept that we need each other! There is nothing else like us, not even close. We grow, we learn, laugh, we love, cry. We are just complete, but complicated.”

From Mister, Are You a Lady? by Roi Barnard

This is a story that must be told through the fingertips on the man’s 85-year-old hands.

There is no bolder method, no stronger vehicle and no more profound receptacle to know Roi Barnard than to allow him to talk about his life through the active sensation of touch. Touch feels the voracity by which he has lived his long life, from the fame and the fortune to the constancy of loss.

Roi Barnard has touched all of his life, through his search for freedom and acceptance, through the dreams he has achieved and in his search for his life’s most redemptive truths.

Continued on Page 36

Throughout his life – now captured in a poignant autobiography -- Roi Barnard has been blessed with magic and struck by tragedy, but as he celebrates his 85th birthday, his decency and his resilience are what continues to best define him

Photos by Jie Deng

Hockessin resident Roi Barnard is the author of Mister, Are You a Lady?, an autobiography that captures his life from his childhood in North Carolina to his rise as a model and then salon owner in Washington, D.C.

Roi Barnard

“Losing Buddy was the beginning of a long, hard journey for me. The struggle to acquire love from my father, Willie, began in that moment.”

Using the top of the Baby Grand in the living room of his Hockessin home as a table, Barnard flips and pirouettes his way through the story of his life like a dancer in an Impressionist painting, then without pause, transforms himself into the pose of a boxer, jabbing and weaving in defense of every glove that cut him and left a scar.

As he speaks, the sepia-toned and color photographs in every room filled with moments and relatives help guide him through every chapter and fill in every crevice, and

they tell the stories that begin when he was a sensitive child growing up in Poplar Branch, North Carolina, population 300 in the 1930s.

Their voices have distilled slightly over the passage of time, but pay no mind to their age and wisdom -- every photograph is a storyteller telling both sides. There is a framed letter dated September 17, 1957 from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover congratulating Barnard – who worked for the agency for two years -- on his recent marriage, a union that he entered into from love and sympathy for his former high school girlfriend who had a baby boy by another man, an arrangement that would serve to shield his homosexuality for two years until he could no longer live a lie, or be found out by his employer.

There are photographs and framed newspaper and magazine clippings that showcase Barnard’s two decades as a male model – a dashing and mustached man resplendent in the haute couture of the 1960s and 1970s.

There are several photographs of the famous mural of Marilyn Monroe above The Salon Roi, where Barnard and his long-time business and life partner Charles the First revolutionized the hair industry throughout the Washington, D.C. area with a foursome of salons. There they are, out on the town, riding in their Rolls Royce, hosting lavish parties and arriving at the Cannes Film Festival. Years later, their relationship would crumble and threaten the demise of the business they had built together.

There is a photograph of Barnard with some of his staff at Salon Roi taken in 1981, talented stylists who had begun to shine under Barnard’s tutelage. Then one by one, they began to vanish, the victims of a cruel disease that took millions of promising lives including some of Barnard’s most trusted friends.

There are photographs of Mr. Joe -- “The Voice of God” at Christ Church in Wilmington -- who was the yen to Barnard’s yang and became the quiet savior of Barnard’s life when he most needed a life companion. There are photographs of their travels and their many friends taken throughout the course of their 25-year relationship, one that ended by Mr. Joe’s own hand when his Alzheimer’s had taken full grip of him.

There is also a photograph of Barnard in the arms of his beloved mother Tillie, and beside them his brother Buddy, who would later die of pneumonia at the age of seven.

If there is a touchtone point that informs Barnard’s life as well as his autobiography, however it is found in the grim gray photograph of Willie, his father, whose steely eyes seem untrusting and unsuspicious in direct contrast to the

The popularity of Barnard’s salons earned him a front-row seat to the social scene of Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

photograph nearby that captures the innocence of his son Roy as a child.

And there it is. We have arrived at the center orb of Roi Barnard’s life – Willie – its most compelling conduit, its angriest muse who obstinately refused to acknowledge the beauty and talent and curiosity of his son.

This story – as well as many others that document his life – is contained in Barnard’s autobiography Mister, Are You a Lady?, the first of his three autobiographies -- two down, one to go -- that was published in 2019.

“My mother Tillie was exceptional in making sure that I was loved, but I know that I was not particularly appreciated by my father,” Barnard said. “He had six sons and three of us were gay. Years later after my mother died, all of his sons were sitting around the table and at one point, Willie looked around and said, ‘Nothing like this in my family.’

“I told him, ‘You can’t say that because we are your family.’ My brothers began to kick me under the table, because they were afraid of him, but I was not. He could not accept us, and I’ve often wondered if it was himself that he couldn’t accept.

“Buddy was all boy and a precious boy, but he never walked, and because it was war time, there was no penicillin. When he died, my father decided to soften the blow by drinking, and I was just became a giant sore to him.”

At a family gathering in Norfolk, Willie hit his six-year-old son Roy so hard that it knocked him off a high porch and into his aunt’s rose garden. Tillie told Willie that if he ever struck Roy again that she would leave him.

“I was always hiding from him, but he always managed to find me and ask, ‘Boy, you doin’ anything, because if you are, I will break your legs,’” he said. “Years later, when I

chose to leave home at 17 to work in Washington, D.C., I was really choosing to leave him.”

Roy Barnard became Roi Barnard in 1963. He would not reconcile with his father until Willie was 82 years old, more than 40 years later.

“Willie told me, ‘I was always afraid of you, Roy, because you were so smart, and all I had was a second-grade education,’” Barnard said. “I told him, ‘Dad, you don’t need education to love someone. It is natural. All you needed to do was love me.’”

“Suddenly so many that we knew and loved were sick. They couldn’t sleep. They were sweating all night, changing their bedding and their pajamas, taking cold showers, and were dead tired the next day.”

Barnard first met Charles David Stinson in 1968 at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.

At the time, Barnard was fully invested in his modeling career in New York City but was beginning to dabble in the beauty industry, inspired in part by the memories he enjoyed watching Tillie give her friends haircuts and hairdos back in North Carolina when he was a child. By the early 1970s, Barnard and Stinson became successful salon owners and in the process, were soon the darlings of the Inside-the-Beltway social scene. They purchased a 15-room, five-bathroom English Tudor in the Carter Barron neighborhood of the nation’s capitol, and installed a pool with the visage of Marilyn Monroe at the bottom of it. They met celebrities. They tooled around town in their gold Rolls Royce.

Roi Barnard

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The sensitive boy from Poplar Branch was now on top of the world.

By the late 1970s, Barnard saw the first signs of Stinson’s erratic behavior. On Sunday mornings, Barnard would wake up and notice complete strangers sleeping in the gardens and near the swimming pool. Stinson began showing poor judgment with the business. Staff was forced to choose between the two partners. Eventually, Stinson left the business and his relationship with Barnard fizzled out, but at the same time, another curvature was forming in Barnard’s world. Beautiful boys, talented young men all around him, were dropping.

“Wealthy people in D.C. wanted gay notoriety at their parties, and we were all stars then, but when AIDS came, I thought we would be stoned in the streets,” Barnard said. “It was utter terror. I lost my fifth stylist when he was just 23 years old, and I saw him die in front of me, but I was barred from his funeral because his parents thought that his death was something that I may have caused.”

“There are no words to express the honor, respect and love that I felt for Mr. Joe. Of course, there were moments of growth for both of us, but in 25 years this man never raised his voice with me, never lost his temper with me.”

Courtesy photo

Barnard’s Salon Roi in Washington, D.C. was noted for its iconic mural of Marilyn Monroe.

In April 1990, Barnard met Joe Thompson, a quiet and gentile man, at a time when Barnard described himself as “a beaten wreck of a human being” who was weathering not only the dissolution of his relationship with Stinson, but an AIDS crisis that continued to storm through the gay community. Their relationship – which included their marriage -- lasted for the next 25 years, and was one of a mutual love and understanding of each other, flavored by chilled Manhattans, the Sunday ritual of service at Christ Church and an unforgettable journey on the Orient Express. After Joe was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2012, he retreated into the silence of his disease, and eventually took his own life in the Wilmington condo he now shared with Barnard.

“Mr. Joe gave me the greatest gift – the gift of his life,” Barnard wrote. “I was so angry with him for taking away the opportunity to use my determined commitment to care for him for the rest of his life or at least through the rest of my life. But he set me free to fly again.”

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Courtesy photo

Barnard, left, arriving with his former partner Charles David Stinton at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.

Roi Barnard

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Beginning in 2018, Barnard, then 80, began arriving at the bar at Eclipse Bistro on Union Street in Wilmington on Saturday nights, and started writing in a notebook. At first his entries were the scribbled and scattering of memories, but they eventually formed the basis for what became Mister, Are You a Lady?

“I met Roi in the fall of 2018 at Eclipse Bistro, and at the time, he was really into writing his book,” said Andrew Charlton, a bartender at the restaurant who partnered with Barnard in forming Roi and His Boi Productions, and now produces audio versions of Barnard’s writing. “Bartending can often be a very challenging business, and it was Roi who became my very first cheerleader at that bar, and eventually, I got him to sign a copy of the book for me.

“I’ve seen a lot of the darker sides of life, and when I read Roi’s book, it blew me away. It reminded me of the little towns I grew up in, and the way that people in those town aren’t always accepting.”

Every other week, Barnard is driven to the Wilmington

Train Station, where he travels to the new Salon Roi in Chevy Chase, Md. for three-day periods, where he takes care of his clients, some of whom he has known for several decades. There is a documentary currently in production based on Mister, Are You a Lady? He is about to publish Willie Tales about his life with his father, and also has a third memoir he is now writing. In his Hockessin home, Roi Barnard presses his long fingers along the polished surface of the Baby Grand, and pauses.

“When I look back on my life, the losses I have experienced eventually become gratitude, in terms of my survival,” he said. “How grateful I am that I am going to be 85 and I am still needed and loved and wanted, and that I was able each time when I thought emotionally and financially that I would be knocked down to bring it back again and to have this life and that still be able to walk and dream in beauty.”

Barnard said he wrote his first book for a particular audience.

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“This book is for that 12 or 13-year-old boy or girl who turns off the light at the end of the light and asks, ‘What in the hell is wrong with me?’” he said. “This book is about forgiveness – forgiveness of others and forgiveness for who we are. Once we accept ourselves, our entry in the world will become a far more gentle one.”

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email rgaw@ chestercounty.com.

Mister, Are You a Lady? is now available online at amazon.com., barnesandnoble.com, and goodreads.com. Willie Tales is now available on Amazon.com. For an audio version of Mister, Are You a Lady? read by Andrew Charlton, visit www.audible.com or iTunes.

Courtesy photo Barnard recently published Willie Tales -- the second of his three autobiographies -- that details the difficult relationship he had with his father.

From their beginning in 1994, the Northern Dela Railroad Club has followed the curiosity of its m results of which have created a masterpiece of i

laware Model members, the ingenuity

The entirety of the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club’s studio space – about 450 square feet -- is wedged into the side of a building in the Stone Mill Office Park on Yorklyn Road, and shares the real estate of the complex with other tenants like chiropractors and doctors and accountants.

From its inconspicuous entrance, it is difficult to imagine what lay ahead for the first-time visitor, but once inside its catacombs, the scale model complexity of a new world opens up, and suddenly and without warning, a visitor is swept up in the memory of childhood, to a time when a model railroad represented the endlessness of one’s young imagination.

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Photos by Jim Coarse

Text by Richard L. Gaw

Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club

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Begun in 1994 by a group of model railroad enthusiasts, the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club has grown both in members and in the invented universe they have created and continue to expand. Housed in two adjacent rooms and generously dotted with small towns, glorious scenery and hundreds of HO-scale trains gliding around tracks, the model of the Northern Delaware Railroad Company is a masterpiece of ingenuity that brings local commerce and history along for the ride.

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Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club

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Starting at the Port of Wilmington and designed as a coal carrier, the 35-foot by 13-foot railroad connects the Wilmington passenger terminal, then heads to Newark, Rising Sun, Md. and beyond to an industrial quarry at Conowingo, Md. With multiple locomotives pulling hundreds of cars, the line then climbs a long grade to East Hagerstown, Md., then through the steep mountains over the Potomac Bridge to Winchester, Va., before reaching the end of the line at the Strasburg Yard in Strasburg, Va.

The distance of the Northern Delaware Railroad may only measure 400 feet, but through the continuing creativity of the model railroad club that bears its name, the end of this railroad may never be built.

To learn more about the Northern Delaware Model Railroad Club, visit www.nordelmodelrr.org.

In pursuit of the white elephant at Cokesbury

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

In order to best describe the long history of the white elephant sales events at Cokesbury Village, simply let the numerical figures tell the story.

The first is $400, which was the amount that was raised from baked goods sales at the Village’s first sale on Jan. 26, 1979, just three months after the community first opened. The second number is 120, which accounts for how many volunteers from the Village help put on the successful event. One more is $8,000, the amount raised when a Tiffany lamp – found clearing out a storage locker that belonged to a resident – was auctioned a few years ago. And a final pair: the sales generally earn $50,000 to $60,000 a year.

But these numbers cannot express the camaraderie among volunteers and good feelings the sale generates. The volunteers are helping donors get rid of stuff and buyers find new treasures. They’re extending the useful life of household items, clothing and furniture, rather than letting them be trashed. And volunteers, other residents and community members enjoy the activities funded by the sales.

“If you work the White Elephant Sale, you have a lot of fun,” said co-chair Bob Netherland.

“It’s so much fun to price and wrap,” Valerie Adams said on a recent Tuesday while doing just that. Volunteers also ensure that electronic gadgets work and items are complete.

The big white elephant sales – so big and with such great values that people line up in advance to be first in the door – run three times a year, this year in March, July and November. Smaller furniture sales occur in between, and a furniture catalog is published every two months. Volunteers also reach out to trusted dealers for specialized items.

Next sale is July 28-29

The next big sale is Friday-Saturday, July 28-29, running 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Smaller items are arranged in and near the du Pont Pavilion, near the ambulance entrance of the complex, 726 Loveville Road, Hockessin. Furniture is sold from a storage shed in a parking lot.

The sales benefit the Cokesbury Village Residents Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports multiple committees and their activities: concerts, classes, lectures, cultural programs, special-interest groups for residents, beautification of the campus grounds, more books for the library and entertainment and participatory activities for residents in the assisted living and healthcare units.

“All things that will enrich the lives of people at Cokesbury and in the community,” Netherland said.

The association has a Facebook page that people can access to learn sale dates and other information. Members post a sign two weeks before each major sale at the corner of Lancaster Pike and Loveville Road. Furniture-only sales are advertised at least a week before. It also sends notifications to an email list. To get on the list or for other questions, write to Netherland at rnether@comcast.net.

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Photo (left) by Ken Mammarella If it’s Tuesday morning, it’s time to help prepare for the Cokesbury Village white elephant sales. Gathered (from left) are Jeanne Gilligan, Valerie Adams (in a red top that she bought at the sale) and Nancy Goyda.

Photo courtesy of Bob Netherland The DuPont Pavilion, at the ready for the sale in March.

Cokesbury’s white elephant sales

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A few items come from people on the complex’s waiting list, and donations continue as residents downsize from cottage to apartment to assisted living to healthcare and final resting place.

“After moving in, people discovered that they brought too much stuff,” Netherland said, citing personal experience. “Those of us who have lived here a long time are still going through our items. How much linens, luggage and kitchenware do you need?”

The sale now has three chairs: Pat Roy, who helps with downsizing; Don Moore, who handles furniture; and Netherland, who handles everything else.

The volunteers gather to process all that stuff 8:30-11 a.m. Tuesdays, except for the week of the sale and the week after, for a wrap-up meeting. Donations that are dirty or in poor condition are recycled or trashed. Donations are first split into big categories: furniture; books, CDs and DVDs; men’s items; and women’s items. Volunteers do some quality control, split the donations into subcategories, price them and box them. Each sorting area has short want-lists from residents, and volunteers buy a few treasures.

“I can dress my whole body for a party with items from the sale,” said Jeanne Gilligan.

The puzzle of pricing

Thanks to their skill in researching online, some prices are easy. That unused food mill that retails for $129? A Dooney & Bourke purse listed online at $243? Both will be bargains at $40. That pair of brass candlesticks that

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Photo by Ken Mammarella

Boxes are packed, labeled and ready for the next sale.

Photos by Ken Mammarella

Don Grimes holds one of the more unusual items donated for the next sale: a model ship. It’s $14, as is.

Greenville & Hockessin

Cokesbury’s white elephant sales

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resembles ones found online for $120? Another bargain, at $30.

But a brass urn with a map of India on one side and an engraving of the Taj Mahal on the other? Or “Nature’s Hallelujah,” an illustrated poetry collection where two copies online are going for $59.39 and $98? They require some more research and finally decisions based upon lifetimes of experiences.

Meredith McGregor has been volunteering for 50 years with sales of used books, first for the American Association of University Women and for the last six at Cokesbury.

Those prices are among the higher ones. Many items are 50 cents or a dollar, Valerie Adams noted.

In the past, they listed some items online – they got $562.52 for an old wooden jigsaw puzzle –but the pandemic led to a hiatus for that routine and also the public sales.

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•Prepared Meats•All Natural Chicken

•Catering Specialties•Marinated Items

•Certified Angus Western Beef •Boar’s Head Gourmet Deli Meats •Honey Glazed Sliced Ham •Homemade Sausage

Photo by Ken Mammarella Pat Grimes (left) and Meredith McGregor volunteer in the section that handles media.

Cokesbury’s white elephant sales

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Forty years of practice has fine-tuned sale weeks. On Wednesday, Cokesbury Village staff members set up dozens of tables in the DuPont Pavilion. Volunteers follow first with labels for the tables and then the actual items. After the sale ends, staff members are invited to take stuff for

free for their families. Items remaining are donated, and the pavilion can then return for a few months to its regular uses, including pickleball and exercise classes.

Some items – like china cabinets and large sofas – rarely sell, as younger generations furnish their houses differently and aren’t interested in a lot of stuff (or a place to display it).

So, after a Tuesday morning dedicated to schlepping and sorting, pricing and handling, do all the volunteers head to lunch together? No, Gilligan said, explaining that she’s too tired.

Photo by Ken Mammarella Several charts help with pricing recurring types of items.

Labels for boxes are reused.

Photo by Ken Mammarella Bob Netherland is one of three co-chairs of the sale.

Preserving Hock

Tweeds Tavern is maintained by the Hockessin Historical Society.

kessin’s History

By Gene Pisasale Contributing Writer

If you thought Hockessin was a sleepy Delaware town with little historic significance, think again.

A tavern dating back to the late 18th century still stands, as does a place of worship which started its life 38 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Unknown to many people, Hockessin was a major conduit for escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad. Other buildings which helped educate young minds in the late 19th and into the 20th century are still on the landscape. The Hockessin Historical Society highlights many of these structures and welcomes visits from all who want to learn about the region’s rich heritage.

Tweed’s Tavern dates back to 1790 and was originally known as the “Mudfort.” Measuring 21 feet by 27 feet, the two-story log structure is listed in a colonial-era tax assessment as a large building with a cookery (kitchen), barn and stables.

In 1802, the building, which apparently was used at some point as a tavern, was sold to John Tweed, whose family owned it until 1831, when it ceased tavern operations. The building was situated along a busy trade route from Lancaster County to Newport, Delaware and attracted travelers coming through the region.

For much of the late 1800s, it was owned by the Thomas Baldwin family, and then, after several changes of ownership, it was purchased by Alfred Giacomelli in 1930. His family owned the building until 1989. Noting its historic significance, the state of Delaware acquired the structure

in 1999. Preservation Delaware, under the guidance of the Hockessin Historical Society, took ownership of Tweed’s Tavern in 2000.

Originally located at the northwestern corner of Limestone Road (Delaware Route 7) and Valley Road, the Tavern was relocated to just off of Valley Road near the Hockessin Athletic Club. A “behind the scenes” tour of the facility graciously provided by Historical Society Vice President Darleen Amobi showcased a building which hosted thirsty travelers when George Washington was President of the United States. Although many of the walls and floorboards have been reconstructed, some of them are original to the building. You can sense its link to the past by running your hand along the logs more than two centuries old, separated by the white plaster popular during the period.

Tweed’s Tavern’s rich heritage also gave birth to the group which would preserve it forever. During the DelDot relocation, the efforts prompted community members to form

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The interior of Tweeds Tavern.

Hockessin’s History

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the Hockessin Historical Society which maintains it today for all to enjoy. A parlor with period furnishings gives visitors a chance to see what colonial taverns were like back in the 1790s.

The Hockessin Historical Society added a museum next door in 2016 to give guests a better sense of Hockessin’s history. Former Society President Joseph R. Lake constructed a series of exhibits highlighting the Wilmington & Western Railroad which ran through Hockessin and on to Landenberg in Pennsylvania. There’s a re-creation of the Hockessin Train Station inside, along with several railroad signs and memorabilia which were some of Lake’s favorite pastimes. Lake wrote two books on Hockessin titled Hockessin: A Pictorial History.

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Hockessin Historical Society Vice President Darleen Amobi with a book on the Underground Railroad.

Hockessin’s History

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Sadly, Joe Lake passed away in 2021. A memorial service on June 28 of that year highlighted his many contributions.

Citizens in northern Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania were very active on the Underground Railroad during the 1800s up through the Civil War. Amobi’s great grandmother was a slave down in Mississippi. Others among her ancestors were slaves in North Carolina and South Carolina.

According to Amobi, “Hockessin was one of the main sites for the Underground Railroad in the north. Thomas Garrett assisted many escaping slaves through the area.”

Amobi said that Garrett married a Mendenhall, whose family is linked with the popular Mendenhall Inn just across the state line. An exhibit showcases local “stationmasters” on this railroad, which never posted a schedule.

The Society owns the Lamborn Library—also known as Delaware Old Public School #29—just up the road from Tweed’s Tavern. Old Public School #29 was built circa 1868-1870 as a one-room school-

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A Hockessin Train Station exhibit inside Tweeds Tavern.

Hockessin’s History

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house. A second floor was added around 1890. The property was previously owned by Levis H. Lamborn (1808-1896) before it was donated to Hockessin and later used as the Hockessin Library. The Society gained ownership of the building in 2014 and allows use of its meeting room for educational purposes and non-profit groups.

The Hockessin Friends Meetinghouse was constructed in 1738 and enlarged seven years later with a side addition. The stone building is one of the few colonial-era houses of worship in Hockessin and is believed to have operated the only school in the area during the late 1700s and early 1800s. A blue and gold historical marker at 1501 Old Wilmington Road tells its story. The first African American Schoolhouse in Hockessin is not far away. It is believed that a schoolhouse may have stood at the location on

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A historical marker for Tweeds Tavern.

Hockessin’s History

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Grant Avenue as early as 1829, but the first documented school for black students is listed as operating in 1878. Members of the Historical Society are active in reaching out to the community. Society President Pete Seely maintains that sites like Tweed’s Tavern are important reminders of our heritage and deserve greater public attention. His Society business card states this clearly: “Preserving Our Local History to Educate Future Generations about Our Past.” The Society website is www. HockessinHistoricalSociety.org. They have Facebook and YouTube pages and can be reached via e-mail at hockessinhistory@gmail.com.

Gene Pisasale is an historian, author and lecturer based in Kennett Square. His 11 books focus mostly on the Chester County/mid-Atlantic region. His latest book is Heritage of the Brandywine Valley, which delves into fascinating aspects of the more than 300-year history of the region. Gene’s books are available on his website at www. GenePisasale.com and also on www.Amazon.com. He can be reached via e-mail at Gene@GenePisasale.com.

The Lamborn Library was originally known as Delaware Old Public School #29.