Strides 2019

St r ide s

A Closer Look

February 28, 2019

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Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

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A Closer Look

Dear readers, The theme of this annual section is “A Closer Look,” inviting you to see more detail and learn more about some of the items and places you may walk by or drive by every day and not pay much mind.

Many of these items and locations tell stories of the past that also have connections to our present and our future.

Can a clock that’s only right twice a day be a symbol of where Suffolk is headed? How about an old cow on top of a building, a cannon in a front yard, some of the area’s oldest churches or an old country general store?

We think all of these items and places have helped make Suffolk what it is today. Read more about them in the following pages and explore with us how they can tell the future as well.

Tracy Agnew Editor

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A family keepsake

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Faith and freedom restored

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City’s past, present and future

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Hometown service

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Legacy in Driver’s Station

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Refuge in the swamp

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The Nansemond Nation

22.

Bank Street’s future

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A moment in time

28.

A Chuckatuck treasure

24.

A famous cow

27.

Timeless shelters

30.

Italian paradise

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STORY AND PHOTOS BY ALEX PERRY STAFF WRITER

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

A family keepsake

Drivers on Nansemond Parkway often stop for a closer look at an old war relic. Westbound traffic going toward downtown Suffolk can see the barrel of the full-size cannon.

That’s the Outlaw Cannon, named after the family that has made the heavy-duty artillery a fixture on their property for the last 57 years. While development is widespread across the city, the cannon has been a constant.

“It’s just part of the stability of this little piece of ground here in Suffolk,” said Beverly Outlaw, 73.

It’s an 1884 Krupp can-

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non, a product of the Krupp industrial empire, a German family and corporation that was one of the world’s principal steelmakers and arms manufacturers until the end of World War II, according to Britannica.com. An expert told Outlaw that it likely made its way to Hampton Roads during World War I, she said.

It was spotted in a Portsmouth junkyard roughly 57 years ago by Marvin Outlaw, Beverly Outlaw’s late husband. He and his father were looking at spare parts for their farm equipment when they stumbled upon the cannon.

Outlaw said her husband wanted it so bad that he was ready to spend all of the money he had saved for his first car.

“He saw the cannon and fell in love,” she said.

The cannon recently received a makeover. Outlaw said that she hired Kenneth Morgan from around Richmond to give it a fresh coat of paint last year, and also to refurbish and reattach the wheels. She wanted to keep as much of the original wood and metal as she could.

People around town quickly notice when something’s amiss with the Krupp. When wheels were taken off for repairs, people started asking questions, and they were excited to see the cannon’s luster return with the wheels. Even the woman who cuts Outlaw’s hair joins the fun.

She said there are visitors at her door monthly to ask about it, and

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Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald parents come by with their children to take pictures. Their children get on top of it while they pull out their camera phones.

Some even make an offer to buy it, but Outlaw has no plans to sell this piece of her family.

At age 17, when she first met her husband on a blind date, the cannon was there in the front yard of his parents’ house. It was there when they got married four years later and traveled to Germany, where he was stationed, and it was there when they came home to Driver and later moved into their current home in 1974.

The cannon has been there for generations of the Outlaw family, including Kaed

Hartman, 12, her grandson and the fourth generation that’s grown fond of it.

“It’s been there all my life,” Kaed said. “I just always enjoyed it. It’s just part of the house.”

Outlaw never considered what other people thought of the cannon, she said. A change in the scenery for some and a break from the norm as they drive across Suffolk, but beyond that she doesn’t think about it. She does, however, think about what her husband said about the old artillery.

“My husband said, ‘This lets folks know the Outlaws live here,’ she said.

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STORY AND PHOTOS

BY ELENA VITULLO CORRESPONDENT

Faith and freedom restored Drive down Kings Highway and take note of what you see every five or six miles. Do you notice a pattern?

Even the keen-eyed observer might not, but those who do will be rewarded with a look back into the revolutionary history of Suffolk.

That old road, or at least what remains of it, once connected all of the English colonies from Georgia to Massachusetts. Dotted along the way, in accordance with English law of the time, were Anglican Churches, the King’s eyes and ears within the colony.

These churches collected taxes, oversaw disputes and offered charity to any colonists who might have needed it. Colonists were required to attend and could be punished for missing services. While most of those churches are now lost to time, Suffolk is home to two that stand in almost the exact same condition as they did before the revolution: Glebe and St. John’s Episcopal churches.

Both churches were originally built in 1643, when the Nansemond Parish was formed, with St. John’s to serve one side of the Nansemond River, and Glebe to serve the other. At that time, Suffolk was only just beginning to become populated with colonists looking to earn their fortune by growing tobacco. However, a scarcity of clergymen meant that

the churches were yoked, or connected through a shared reverend, a practice that would continue until the 21st century, when the destruction of the Kings Highway Bridge turned a five-minute commute in a 25-minute one.

Glebe was originally located on the southern bank of the river, only a short boat ride away from St. John’s. However, the original church was deemed to be “in ruinous condition,” and a new one was built in 1738 at its present location, just outside of Driver’s Station.

Although Glebe was technically an Anglican church, Larry Todd, chair of the Glebe Historical Committee, says that it served a Puritan community. According to Todd, Suffolk was “the hinterlands,” of the colony, and a place where many religious dissenters fled. Among its most notable early parishioners was Richard Bennett, a governor of both Virginia and Maryland, and the namesake of Bennetts Pasture Road.

While St. John’s remains on its original site on King’s Highway, it is actually the third building to stand there and dates to about 1756. According to Ferguson, the previous buildings were made of less durable materials that were difficult to maintain in the Tidewater climate.

“It’s amazing to me that this one is actually still standing, consider-

ing that these bricks are over 260 years old,” he said.

It was difficult to separate the church from the state in colonial Virginia, as the king was the head of both. This made the Anglican church a uniquely political body, a fact that caused considerable tension in the Nansemond Parish. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, said Les Ferguson of St. John’s, St. John’s Parish contained staunch Loyalists, in support of the king. Glebe, on the other hand, sided with the Rebels.

This disparity led to what Glebe claims to be one of the earliest acts of aggression of the War. In 1775, the rector of both churches was a Rev. John Agnew, a Scotsman who had been butting heads with his parishioners for nearly 30 years. Glebe historian Steve Turner says that Agnew was “in open rebellion with his parishioners, suing back and forth over everything and anything.”

According to legend, Parson Agnew called for a special meeting one spring Sunday. The small church was filled to capacity, and even more residents were said to have been outside, looking through windows and doors to see what the parson could possibly have to say.

The parson denounced the rebellion as an “abomination against God,” and begged his parishioners to see reason and put the rebellion

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald behind them. When his speech was met with anger, the parson is said to have quietly walked out of the building and rode off, before eventually fleeing Suffolk altogether.

While the exact date of the incident is unknown, the Glebe Historical Committee knows for certain that it was reported on the front page of the Virginia Gazette, the colony’s official newspaper, on April 1, 1775. The article went into detail about the incident, as well as all of the grievances the community had against the parson. On page 2 of that same issue, Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me liberty, or give me death” speech of March 23, 1775, was reported and printed in full. “We believe that the event predated Lexington and Concord,” said committee member Steve Turner.

The two churches also have the distinct honor of being the last glebe owners in the state.

Their glebe, or church-owned farm, is located at the first site of Glebe Church, what is now known as Glebe Point. Most glebes were designated by the king, making them public land.

In 1802, a law was passed by the Virginia legislature to take back all glebes because of this. The Nansemond Parish was allowed to keep its glebe due to the fact that it had been donated in 1630 by a colonist named Percival Champion, meaning it was private land. The glebe was one of only three in Virginia to be saved. Both Ferguson and the Glebe Historical Committee now believe that the other two, located near Washington D.C., have

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been sold, making Glebe Point the last true glebe in the state.

There is one final connection that solidifies the unique spot these two churches hold in the state’s history. For nearly 80 years, they shared a minister with the oldest surviving church in the state, St. Luke’s Historic Church in Isle of Wight County.

St. Luke’s dates back to around 1686, and while it is no longer a building where services are held, it stands as a symbol of the region’s religious history.

“This building is a symbol of the oppression that our founding fathers sought to rid us of when they included religious freedom in the constitution,” said St. Luke’s Executive Director Todd Ballance.

According to Ballance, these early churches, like St. Luke’s, were the “forts” in the colonies, the foothold that the crown used to establish its dominance in a new land. The rector was the only government official that colonists were regularly in contact with, and a subtle reminder of the power and reach of the crown. The government supported the church, and in return the church validated the government. To go against the church, to say anything that did not align with the church’s beliefs or teachings, was to go against the king himself. It was this total control that inspired the writers of the constitution, said Ballance.

“Religious freedom started in these colonial churches.”

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STORY AND PHOTOS

BY KELLIE ADAMSON STAFF WRITER

City’s past, present and future It’s easy to miss impressive things, especially in municipal buildings. That is no different in Suffolk’s City Hall.

The new City Hall building, constructed just a few years ago, features an impressive glass case just steps away from the door, and inside is a sneak peek of what makes Suffolk so special.

“We hope that this is something that is like a brief snapshot for guests of City Hall to learn a little bit about what the city is about,” said Director of Media and Community Relations Diana Klink. “It shows what our history is as well as our significant businesses and interesting memorabilia.”

The case has a special place in Klink’s heart, as she was the one tasked with curating the items.

The glass case features a coffee bean display and the city’s self-proclaimed nickname, “Caffeine Capital.”

Mugs are filled with coffee beans, and boxes of Suffolkbased coffee brands are proudly on display.

“We wouldn’t be complete without our Caffeine Capital row. That’s the name we like to give ourselves,” said Klink.

“It is so true when you look at the nationally recognized brands that are here.”

Suffolk Mayor Linda T. Johnson touted the nickname

during her 2014 State of the City address, and it was no exaggeration.

Massimo Zanetti and Smucker’s both have homes in Suffolk, and the two businesses produce coffee for Chock Full o’Nuts, Kauai Coffee and Folgers. The already heavily caffeinated city added more java with a multi-million-dollar investment from Peet’s Coffee.

The coffee brand chose to build a roastery.

“Lipton kicked it off, and everybody else is adding a jolt to the area,” Klink said.

The two most meaningful relationships that Suffolk has are with Lipton and Planters Peanuts, both of which are staples in the area. Displays for both of the brands sit at the top of the case.

“Lipton and Planters are the most recognized international companies that proudly call Suffolk home,” Klink said. “It’s important for us to give them a nice place in the display case.”

A beautiful tea set, purchased at Riddick’s Folly, sits among other Lipton tea boxes and other paraphernalia to commemorate the relationship.

The famous tea brand first came to Suffolk in 1955 after the site was chosen by Sir Thomas Lipton himself, and it is currently the only plant in the country that packages teabags for Lipton.

Having a long history with companies is quite common in Suffolk. Planters Peanuts came to the city in 1913 and now is proudly celebrating 106 years in Suffolk.

Items, some historic and some new, show the lengthy relationship with the peanut company.

Mr. Peanut, commemorative glasses and a large glass jar of peanuts sit at the very top.

The case works to show off what makes Suffolk a city to be proud of, and with all the coffee, tea and peanuts there is plenty to be proud of. While those things are widely known across the city, other businesses that have more recently planted roots here in Suffolk are also given a front row seat in the glass case.

A hammer and a white plush dog represent the city’s relationship with Ace Hardware and Target. Both businesses have planted roots with distribution centers, and they both have made a significant impact by bringing jobs and economic growth.

Things in a glass case can occasionally go unnoticed, even some of the larger items.

At the very bottom of the case, perched on a pillow, is the city’s mace. The ornate item is used ceremonially during investiture and swearing-in ceremonies, and the item is generally carried in symbolically before the flags.

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald “It is such a beautiful artifact that it had to be in a place to be viewed and enjoyed by our citizens,” Klink said. “Of course, it is safely kept here as well.”

While the mace is used at various city ceremonies, the history isn’t widely known. The city has a mace as a symbol of its relationship with England.

The town of Ipswich, in Suffolk County, England, shared the design of their mace with Suffolk to commemorate the relationship, and the Suffolk Rotary Club financed the mace as a gift to the city. It was presented to the citizens on May 10, 1979.

Strong ties to European cities are common in Suffolk, but its strongest relationship is with Oderzo, Italy. The relationship is commemorated in the glass case with flags, a clay wine pot, a book and other items from Italy.

“Some of the different gifts were exchanged with us over the years, and they are significant to their village,” Klink said.

Oderzo is important to the city of Suffolk because of Amedeo Obici, and Oderzo is a Sister City to Suffolk. Obici brought the city a legacy of peanuts and so much more. The Sister Cities Commission regularly host events between the two cities or events that commemorate the relationship between the two.

Also in the display case sits a commemorative brick from the old City Hall building. The brick sits among plenty of other items, including a decanter of soil from the groundbreaking of the new building.

The previous building was more than 50 years old and had multiple structural issues making it unfit. This allowed the city to bring new life to a new building, one which they are proud to walk into every day, according to Klink.

“Each row and item have their own significance. In a nutshell, it’s about everything important to our city, from businesses that call Suffolk home and citizens that have made an impact on our success,” Klink said. “I think we all lead such busy lives, and it is important to take a step back and think about what makes our city so unique.”

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STORY BY TRACY AGNEW PHOTOS BY TROY COOPER

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

Hometown service

In a small park at the main crossroads in Holland, a monument pays tribute to the birth of a national organization.

Ruritan National was founded here in May 21, 1928, with a meeting of 36 farmers, businessmen and others at the Holland Hotel. Since then, it has grown to represent about 25,000 members in more than 900 communities, serving urban areas, small towns and rural communities with civic needs. Unlike most civic service organizations, Ruritan rarely has national programs, according to the organization’s website.

Instead, each club surveys its own community to see some of the needs. Many clubs sponsor youth organizations, work with FFA and 4-H groups, and sponsor Boy or

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Girl Scout units.

And it all started here in Holland, as a closer look at the memorial near the corner of Holland Road, Ruritan Boulevard and South Quay Road attests.

Along with the organization’s logo, the monument contains the words “Community Service, Fellowship, Goodwill.” It notes that “Near this monument was founded the first Ruritan Club May 21, 1928, Holland, Virginia.”

One side of the monument lists the charter members.

A committee was formed to build a physical memorial for Ruritan in 1948, according to “Bits and Pieces: First Ruritan Club” by Robert C. Eubank. About nine years later, Eubank, the vice president in 1957, gained approval from the National Committee, and

the School Board granted approval on June 4 to use land it owned at the time for the memorial in Holland.

Lawson and Newton Co., of Norfolk, was approved to build the memorial. The 9-foot-high triangular granite memorial was erected beginning in January, and the project was completed in March. Landscaping was done

by April 5, and the final cost was $3,310, plus many hours of work by club members, Eubank wrote.

It was formally unveiled May 25, 1958, with speakers including then state Sen. Mills E. Godwin Jr., a Chuckatuck native, who would go on to serve as lieutenant governor and twice as governor.

The five active charter members unveiled the monument, 30 years after they first founded the club.

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald Many years later, Eubank wrote, the plot on which the monument stands was deeded to Ruritan National from the city of Suffolk.

Sometime after June 1959, a historical marker was set very near the memorial, reading “The first Ruritan Club was founded here in Holland, Va., on May 21, 1928. Ruritan is an organization of rural leaders striving through community service, fellowship and good will to make the rural community a better place in which to live.”

These days, the memorial still stands as a symbol of this organization that has given so much to many communities across America.

“It’s important, because it gives back a lot to the community,” said Lovey Lyons, the current president of the Holland Ruritan Club.

The Holland Ruritan Club gives scholarships, supports youth sports and a Ruriteen Club at Lakeland High School, donates to the volunteer fire department and

the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and more, Lyons said.

“It’s very true when we say it takes a whole community to raise families, to live together and to serve together,” she said. “The service that is done today by the Ruritans is sometimes even more important today than it was back years and years ago, because times have changed so much.”

Lyons said the club, like many civic organizations, needs to work on getting young people involved to keep the club going.

“We all need to work on that and to remember we’re here for the communities,” she said.

This year’s Founders Day event, an annual celebration in Holland remembering the founding of the organization, will take place May 18 and feature a parade, car show and more.

“We’re just a very community-oriented organization,” Lyons said.

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Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

: t a k o o l A Legacy in Driver’s Station STORY AND PHOTOS

BY ELENA VITULLO CORRESPONDENT

F

or nearly a century, one store has defined the small-town spirit of Suffolk.

Arthur’s General Store, located at the corner of Driver Lane and Kings Highway, has been owned and operated by Greg Parker for the past 33 years. To hear him talk about the store is to hear him talk about his own family. His grandfather started the store, and someday, he hopes to pass the mantle on to one of his sons. “Someone in the family has always had a foot in here,” he said.

Most of what he knows is a mix of fact, family legend, and spontaneous stories told by customers, exactly what you might expect from a small-town general store.

Irvin Arthur opened the store in 1925, when Driver’s Station was a small collection of farms centered around the eponymous train station. The train essentially connected the community to the rest of the world, shipping all the produce grown in the area out and bringing mail and other goods in.

As a general store, Arthur’s served as the community’s Walmart, according to Parker. It sold groceries, like flour, sugar and seasonal fruits and vegetables, as well as household supplies, like nails and spigots.

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“My grandfather liked having whatever people were looking for,” remembers Parker. “Nothing made him happier.”

Arthur’s also served as the Driver’s Station post office.

Although any evidence of it is long gone, Parker remembers a counter standing across from the store’s cash register, lined with brass plated mail boxes and even “one of those old-fashioned cages around the counter to keep the post officer safe.” When business within the store picked up, Arthur brought in his brother, whose wife became the postmaster general for the town.

In the 1930s, and again a decade later, Arthur was able to expand the store, building an extension in the back and a storage room on the side. The store as it stands now is the result of those expansions. A coal stove was removed from the center of the floor, and the chimney still hangs over the store. A combination refrigerator and freezer display case was installed and removed, counters were rearranged and soda coolers were installed. Outside of the store, Driver’s Station began to change as well, with the station moving out and various stores in town closing, moving and even burning down.

Through it all, Arthur’s remained a store for the community. Farmers’ lives and finances depended on the harvest, and Parker said his grandfather frequently opened lines of credit to help his customers get by.

The Arthur family made sandwiches every morning for the local school, a service he said his mother remembered with disdain.

In the 1970s, Parker started working in the store. He said he remembers his grandfather counting up the day’s earnings and wondering why there wasn’t ever as much as there used to be. That same decade, the post office left Arthur’s for its current location on Bennetts Pasture Road.

In 1980, after suffering from a bad fall, Arthur gave the store to his daughter, Virginia, and her husband. Six years later, Parker took over. He oversaw the store as it shifted from serving a farming community to being a corner store in a busy neighborhood.

He said most of the new neighbors were young couples with kids. Arthur’s was a convenient place for them to stop in and buy simple groceries, like milk and eggs, while running from school to sports and back home.

Robin Badoian was one of those new neighbors. She has

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald

lived in Driver’s Station for the past 15 years and said that Arthur’s General Store is a fond childhood memory for her two teenagers. She remembers walking with them to get ice cream, candy and toys. She would even use the store as a way to “bribe” them to do household chores.

She said that the biggest appeal of the store is its old-fashioned style. “It just looks like an oldtimey store,” said Badoian. “You walk in and you hear the creaking floors and the bell ringing over the door. It makes it feel so different compared to other stores.”

Her daughter, Darby, said that as a child, Arthur’s presented a world of never-ending possibilities. “I remember going in with a few dollars and coming home and just feasting on candy.” She said that it was always a novelty for her friends coming from other neighborhoods, something you could only find in Driver’s Station. “Arthur’s is iconic,” she said. “It’s what makes Driver special.”

As Suffolk continued to develop, and big-name stores moved in, business at the general store began to slow down. Companies stopped seeking out small businesses, and it became less profitable to make special orders that were tailored to the needs of a small community. Parker said that many family-owned businesses were faced with a difficult choice — either specialize or close up shop. It all came to a head with the financial crisis in 2008.

“It was like someone hit a light switch,” Parker said.

He suddenly found himself with

too much merchandise and not enough customers. The neighborhood general store seemed to have lost the neighborhood it served. It became too costly to stock groceries that were not selling. Even more niche products, like moccasins and Wild West-themed toys, came off the shelves. Kids who had grown up around the store seemed to drive right by the store without a second thought. “It seemed like the thrill had just worn off.”

Business is only just starting to pick back up, and Parker said that is due largely to the Seaboard Coastline Trail. The trail, which starts across from the location of the old train station, has brought more people into Driver’s Station, and as each leg connects, Parker said, he sees more and more business. “It really has been like a shot in the arm for the community.”

With customers coming from outside the neighborhood, Parker has had to change the store up.

While it still sells candy, soda and sandwiches, customers can also find an assortment of knickknacks and hand-made goods. The store has also become a venue for local musicians. Every Friday, visitors can hear everything from bluegrass to the Beatles. “We even had a kid come in and play the tuba once,” Parker said.

He hopes that the live music and artistic aura can usher in a new life for the store, one that will appeal to young and old once again. “Things have a way of cycling back around, and I hope to see that here someday.”

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STORY

BY ALEX PERRY STAFF WRITER PHOTOS

BY JEN JAQUA

Submitted photo

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

Refuge in the swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp lives up to its name in the summertime.

Water moccasins, rattlesnakes and clouds of biting insects plague those that wander through its thick vegetation and dark water. Sunlight becomes scarce under the thick canopies of trees as they carefully move along.

Dan Sayers recalled walking through the swamp and taking ever-so-careful steps. It was a tense experience, as your muscles are ready for any log or branch that could be underfoot, he said.

“I’ve never wandered through the jungles of the world, but it strikes me as what’s been described (to me),” he said. “It’s quite beautiful in its way.”

For decades, this harsh environment was a refuge for Native Americans that fled from colonial settlers in the early 1600s.

This place was later dominated by runaway Africans and AfricanAmericans, from the late 1600s to the Civil War. These runaways were known as the “maroons,” which comes from the Spanish word “cimarrón,” meaning feral livestock, fugitive slave or something wild and defiant. They had escaped enslavement to live in free, independent settlements within the swamp.

Sayers is the associate professor and department chair for the anthropology department at American University, and in 2004 he started looking into the

idea of permanent maroon settlements in the swamp.

This challenged the popular notion that settlements in the swamp were transient and temporary. Maroons would hide out for a brief time before they were either captured or taken to freedom by the Underground Railroad.

He broke ground with his research when he was searching the swamp in 2004. After months of dead-ends at higher-ground spots, he found one of the “islands” that he had heard so much about. He called the 20-acre island the “nameless site.”

It’s a placeholder name until someone discovers what it was actually called by the maroons who made their life on solid ground inside desolate marsh.

“It was amazing,” Sayers said.

“From the first hole I dug in the ground, I recovered artifacts that I wouldn’t say cemented these kinds of maroon communities that lived out there, but it was evidence that pointed the way. It really made it real in a sense.”

Sayers had started his research prior in archives that contained references to maroons dating back to the early 1700s.

Accounts described runaway slaves and Native Americans attacking farms and plantations before disappearing back into the swamp, according to the Smithsonian article. Ads in Virginia and North Carolina newspapers mentioned the swamp as a likely refuge for

runways up until the Civil War. But on that one nameless island, Sayers found more than 3,000 artifacts that truly told the story of how they survived, and that’s just one of eight different sites that his team has studied since, he said.

In a very real sense, they read their stories in the ground.

“It becomes, professionally speaking, one of our archives as well,” he said. “We’re effectively reading the ground and what’s in it.”

Arrowheads and knife heads revealed how the maroons repurposed many Native American artifacts they had found in the dirt and mud. There were ceramic pots of ancient vintage in places where their cabins once stood.

“These maroons and others in the historic areas were actually reusing and finding new ways to use those ceramics,” he said.

When reconstructing how these people lived, Sayers considered how they divided labor. Everyone did his or her part to survive in this hidden community. They cultivated large fields of rice and other crops that could grow in the swamp. He said that documents also suggested that there were smaller gardens behind family cabins.

They had to be ready to defend themselves, but there was also time to celebrate the birth of a child and build new cabins for new families.

Groups would go on excursions to visit friends in other settlements,

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February 28, 2019 | Page 15

sometimes miles away.

Sayers imagined children playing and parents sharing stories by firelight.

“We have one document of a guy who made musical instruments and furniture. Not everyone necessarily wanted to do that or could do that, but you had these special skills.

(You had) people passing time just doing things,” he said.

Visitors to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge can stop by the Underground Railroad Education Pavilion. When they do, they should consider the families that survived this wilderness, and the evidence they left behind.

They fled to this swamp to build a haven from surrounding persecution, and their tools tell their story.

“I hope it spurs people on to pick up that book or that article, do their own research and find out about that world outside the swamp that would compel people to do this,” Sayers said. “(To find out) what these people are saying in their actions.”

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PHOTOS AND STORY

BY ELENA VITULLO CORRESPONDENT

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

The Nansemond Nation A former city park along the Nansemond River has found a new life in the some of the oldest residents of Suffolk.

The Nansemond Indian Nation has called Mattanock Town its home for the past five years, although the tribe’s connection with the site goes back much further. According to anthropologist Helen Rountree, the site’s name comes from a map Capt.

John Smith drew in 1608, which included a small village nearby of the same name.

The tribe began using the site to host its annual powwows in 1988 and has had control of it since 2013. The site is officially recognized by the National Park Service as a Chesapeake Gateway on the John Smith Water Trail, meaning it is a historic site that is accessible by boat as well as by land. The tribe’s hope is to eventually create an “authentic Algonquian dispersed village,” on site, with nature trails and longhouses.

The Nansemonds once lived throughout the entire Nansemond River Valley, effectively all of modern-day Suffolk. They were one of 30 Algonquian tribes connected by the Powhatan Chiefdom throughout the Chesapeake Bay region. From 1610 to 1646, they were involved in the

Anglo-Powhatan Wars, which led to disagreements within the tribe.

While some members were for assimilating into English society, others were against it. Those who were against it went on to join other tribes in the region, most notably the Nottoways. Those who chose English life became known as the Christianized Nansemonds.

In 1638, this connection was strengthened when the chief’s daughter, Elizabeth, married an English minister named John Bass, who had come to the region as a missionary. According to Rountree, this was only the second recorded instance of an Englishman marrying an Indian woman in Virginia, the first being Pocahontas and John Rolfe in 1614. This was also when the tribe began moving out of Suffolk.

Most of the more than 250 modern Nansemonds trace their lineage back to several men named William Bass. The first William Bass gained notoriety after being granted land in Norfolk based on his Nansemond heritage. The second William Bass was given a certificate of Nansemond lineage in 1747.

The third William Bass is the most notable, says Rountree. In 1793, William Bass was grant-

ed a certificate of Nansemond and English descent by Norfolk County. Rountree says this was likely done as a way to protect himself from racial discrimination. “At that time, if you were even assumed to be black, and you didn’t have your documents on you, you could legally be sold. William Bass got that certificate to protect himself from being sold into slavery.”

In the mid-19th century, the Nansemonds strengthened their foothold outside of Suffolk with the opening of the Indiana Methodist Church in Chesapeake. Several years later, an Indian public school was built on that site, giving many Nansemonds their first opportunity to become literate. That land, owned by a Bass, would be the meeting grounds for the Nansemonds until their move to Mattanock Town. Shortly before that move, in 1984, the nation officially organized, gaining state recognition a year later.

The nation has continued to grow since that milestone. In the past year alone, it celebrated its 30th annual powwow and became federally recognized.

This recognition means that the Nansemonds are now their own sovereign nation.

Tribal Council Member Nikki Bass said that the next step

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald for the nation is to establish a presence among the federal agencies that work closest with tribes. She has already begun building a presence by attending the Indigenous Peoples March on Jan. 18, 2019.

Despite their newfound federal status, Bass says that the Nansemonds have not forgotten Suffolk. They are actually looking to reinforce their connection with their neighbors by creating more opportunities for outreach and education.

“We have always had a historic relationship with the community,” she said, “and we want to continue to strengthen that by partnering with local environmental and historical organizations and highlight their contributions to the nation.”

She says the nation welcomes community engagement and says that Mattanock Town is accessible to everyone. The Nansemonds are also working on creating a small library to help keep track of the many genealogical records necessary to apply for membership.

Alongside its annual powwow, Brian Bass, son of Chief Sam Bass, is hoping to begin a new tradition for the tribe. This year, Mattanock Town will host its first Nansemond Firebird Festival, running March 22-23.

The festival is designed to showcase what Nansemond life was like before the English arrived and to incorporate that with Standards of Learning objectives. According to Bass, the event “will offer a unique, curated experience for local community members, organizations and schools to learn about

February 28, 2019 | Page 19

the history and living culture of Nansemond Indian Nation.”

Unlike powwows, which focus on watching traditional practices, this festival will be more interactive and encourage participation, Bass said.

The two-day event will cover a variety of subjects related to life along the Nansemond River, including climate and agriculture, survival skills and even language.

Children will be able to get hands-on experience in learning how to build longhouses and make traditional Nansemond crafts.

Visitors will even be given the chance to take a cooking class with a Native American chef, using seasonal, local ingredients, just like the original Nansemonds.

According to Nikki Bass, the hope is that the festival will allow residents of Suffolk to get to know the Nansemonds more intimately, and see that they are real, live people with a close connection to the past. “We want kids to be able to learn about our history from us.”

Even its name presents an opportunity to learn about the tribe. According to their folklore, a firebird burned a nest inside the Great Dismal Swamp, creating Lake Drummond.

Scientific research has confirmed that the lake was formed by peat fires, said Bass.

“This is just one of the many examples of how indigenous history can be used to fuel scientific discovery.”

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STORY AND PHOTOS

BY KELLIE ADAMSON STAFF WRITER

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

Bank Street’s future Just over a century ago, Bank Street was vibrant and full of life, and the houses were filled with wealthy and well-to-do families.

Every house had a family name and a deep and rich history.

That once-lively community is gone, but some believe the street could be restored to its former splendor.

“It really could be an excellent community to live in once more houses get restored,” said SuffolkNansemond Historical Society Director Kimberly Blair-Greene.

“A lot of history is still held here.”

While the glitz and glamour have dimmed on Bank Street, some of the homes have retained their grandeur and history.

The Phillips-Dawson House is the focal point of the historic street, and it is currently the home to the SuffolkNansemond Historical Society at 137 Bank St. The house came to Bank Street in the early 1900s, but originally had its entrance facing Franklin Street. That changed after the Truitt Mansion was built across the street.

The Phillipses made Bank Street the lavish place to be back in its heyday. The original owners, before the Dawsons joined the street, had their fortune from the lumber business. Mr. and Mrs. Horace Phillips and their family

lived in the house for at least 20 years before Dr. and Mrs. Challis Dawson took over.

The Dawson family history still lines both floors of the historic house, and there is almost no surviving history from the Phillipses.

The home was bustling with people as Dr. Dawson saw his patients in a room behind the stairs and his wife hosted students for piano lessons.

Their only son, Gerard, split time between his job at Tiffany and Co. and living in the Bank Street residence before giving the home to the historical society after his passing.

The Truitt Mansion, possibly the grandest home on Bank Street, was the reason the PhillipsDawson House moved its entrance to Bank Street, and it still stands as the best-kept home on the street.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jones were the first to own the property, but it was just a small English basement home before the Truitt family transformed the plot. In 1909, the wealthy lumberman built the most extravagant home on Bank Street.

Ruth Baker purchased the house in 2012 and opened a bed-andbreakfast in 2018. The website touts the beauty of the property and allows for patrons to enjoy fine dining, host events or simply stay for a nice getaway.

While the Phillips-Dawson and

Truitt homes are hidden gems nestled on Bank Street, other homes were not so fortunate as time passed.

Due to either fire or other businesses coming in, some of the homes on Bank Street were demolished, and these once-regal family homes disappeared. At least 15 homes that used to line Bank Street were demolished for one reason or another, removing a piece of history and flavor from the street.

Other homes, while not demolished, have fallen into disrepair.

A home at the corner of Bank and Pinner streets, the Lehman House, was once home to Jewish immigrants, and now the house is boarded up and condemned.

Nathan Lehman, a retail store owner, was a German Jew, and he hosted the first Jewish wedding in Suffolk’s history. Mr. Lehman’s sister was married in the once grand home.

Thankfully, Bank Street is slowly starting to pull itself up by its bootstraps. The home to the left of the historical society, 133 Bank St., will soon be a French antiques store.

The home was once inhabited

by Mr. Walter Eley and his wife Ida. The couple had three children and owned a retail clothing store.

The Truitt, Eley and PhillipsDawson homes are symbols that

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald the street could regain some of the color and life it once had, and Blair-Greene is certain it will. It will just take time.

“Little by little, it’s trying to revive itself. It is trying to become a community again,” she said.

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o o l A STORY

BY ALEX PERRY STAFF WRITER PHOTOS

BY JEN JAQUA

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Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

A famous cow When you want gourmet food with some of the freshest ingredients in North Suffolk, all you have to do is look for Betsy.

The black-and-white Holstein cow is the first thing that most people see when they’re driving on Bridge Road, right on top of the Bennett’s Creek Farm Market and Deli. She was part of the deal Jim Shirley made when he bought the market from J.C. Matthews back in 1997.

“Mr. Matthews was very proud of Betsy,” Shirley said.

“When I bought the store, I thought he wasn’t going to give me the cow. But he did.”

His son, Jodie Matthews,

remembered when Betsy was parked in front of a restaurant farther down Route 17. Cutting up onions for the day’s Brunswick stew, he remembered when she was moved to the market in the late 1960s.

Children’s colored pictures of Betsy hang around the store. The cow’s history is checkered with misadventures, but she’s still standing and catching drivers’ eyes.

“She’s been stolen a couple of times, but she always turned up somewhere,” Matthews said.

The market has maintained its popularity in the midst of North Suffolk development and progress with fresh, locally-grown vegetables teamed with a slew of fresh-

baked desserts and a meat department that’s packed with customers daily.

“It’s a delightful place to visit,” Shirley said. “You see people staying around for 30 (or) 45 minutes.

It’s an amazing place, and we try to give services that other stores are not quite able to do.”

Matthews said the market is busiest around lunchtime. His point was made clear just before noon on a winter day, when lunch traffic rolled in and formed a line that wrapped around the counter.

Customers came for their consistent favorites. For some, it’s the Brunswick stew. Others come for the fried chicken — crunchy with a bit of spice and tons of juicy fla-

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald vor — and paired with fresh green beans and warm rolls.

“We use the highest quality product that we can find,” Shirley said.

Leigh Taylor has been a butcher at the market for seven years. She was cutting up chicken wings, thighs and breasts as the lunch crowd began to sprawl. Whatever wasn’t getting packaged for the freezer was being cooked immediately.

“It’s the freshest you’re going to get, I would say,” Taylor said.

Their goal is customer satisfaction, and that starts by delivering quality food that turns first-timers into regulars.

April Fleming, 39, was at the deli with her 1-year-old, Lucas. She lives in Driver with her family and always comes by the market for the same thing.

She and her husband stopped at the market when they first looked at houses in the area roughly 12 to 13 years ago, she said. That’s when she first had their chicken salad sandwich.

“Now I’ll come here to buy it

by the quart and keep it at home,” she said, with Lucas in her arms.

“He likes it too, and he doesn’t like much.”

Along with the “hot side” of the deli with fried chicken and mouthwatering ribs, the “cold side” comes with made-toorder wraps and sandwiches.

The bakery churns out a collection of pastries for all sorts of taste buds. Customers can enjoy gourmet coffee while they look through the glass at pie, Danishes and bear claws, or they can just walk over and get a milkshake.

They’ll have shoppers drive from Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Franklin and sometimes farther, according to Matthews. Like he said, it’s all about making them happy and keeping them coming back for more.

“The customer service has as much to do with it as everything else. You’ve got to treat people right,” he said.

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STORY

BY TRACY AGNEW EDITOR PHOTOS

BY JEN JAQUA

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

A moment in time

Visitors to town, should they happen to glance at the corner of the Professional Building at one of the city’s busiest intersections, might find themselves thinking the time is 7:01 a.m. or 7:01 p.m., depending on whether they’re heading to breakfast with friends or heading home from a late night at the office.

But longtime Suffolkians know, and newcomers quickly come to know, that the large, elaborate timepiece has been stuck at one minute past 7 o’clock for years now.

The tall, tan-bricked building mostly houses the administrative offices of Suffolk Public Schools.

The black cube with gold embellishments is mounted to the southwest corner of the building, near the intersection, and has a clock face on each of its sides, every one of them stuck at 7:01.

The building is owned

by S.L. Nusbaum as well as a California man. Attempts to repair the clock over the years have failed, and it’s gotten to the point where nobody wants to lose the running joke.

Downtown business owner Ed Beardsley said he first noticed the clock more than a decade ago, and the first time he saw it, it was close to the correct time, so he didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until later that he realized it always read 7:01.

“I don’t even know what I

would do if it actually worked,” said Beardsley, who owns the Plaid Turnip restaurant across the street.

Now that most people carry at least one digital device at all times, he noted, a public clock itself is a nod to days gone by.

“The idea of public clocks is so weird these days,” he said. “It’s weird to have a public clock working.”

This clock, however, has become more than a running joke, a conversation piece or a historical artifact.

It’s an icon not only for Suffolk’s past but also for its future, as some up-and-coming locations in downtown have taken inspiration from the clock.

The Brick & Mortar Brewery a couple of blocks down East Washington Street recently named a drink, 7:01 Espresso Stout, after the clock. The slogan is, “It’s always a good time for 7:01 Espresso Stout.”

And Beardsley himself used the clock as inspiration for the flagship project of the SPARC (Suffolk’s Premier Art, Retail and Cultural) Initiative.

In 2017, Beardsley leased the ground floor of the Professional Building for an artists’ working space he dubbed OnePast7 in homage to the clock.

“When we first started doing SPARC, things that people gripe about, we wanted to turn that into something positive,” Beardsley said.

“One of the other names we were

throwing around was Rail to Rail, for the same reason. People complain about the railroad tracks all the time, but that is part of what downtown is … That clock is very much part of downtown.”

SPARC now hosts artists not only for studio space but also for gallery space in different buildings downtown. There’s also the SPARC Shoppe, just down the street, where about three dozen artists have wares on display.

The initiative also has many projects under way, including Second Saturdays arts events, organizing an effort for public murals and getting downtown declared an arts district.

But although OnePast7 is just a part of SPARC, it’s the public face of the initiative as well as a symbol of how Suffolk can be surprising in a good way — not just with a clock that doesn’t have the right time.

“It’s always nice to have something that surprises people,” Beardsley said of OnePast7. “People say, ‘This doesn’t feel like Suffolk,’ but maybe Suffolk needs to feel more like this.”

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald

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o o l A Timeless shelters Visitors to Baron’s Pub tend to expect good food and a relaxed environment. But, depending on which door they come through, they might also get a stark reminder of an ever-present fear of the notso-distant past.

Hanging on the wall right in front of the bar is a sign that reads “Fallout Shelter.” At first glance, it may seem to be just another novelty decoration. Hanging above a license plate spelling out the restaurant’s name, the sign seems to fit the theme of Americana.

However, owner Mike Williams said it is very real, and believes it to be from the 1950s.

“It was in the building when we got here. No one ever told me anything about it, but I guess it’s to let you know that this place is safe if something ever goes down.”

Baron’s Pub is on the ground floor of the Suffolk Towers apartment building. When it was first built in 1925, it was known as the Hotel Elliot, named for its owner, Milton T. Elliot. The building was bought in the 1950s and the name was changed, first to the Hotel Suffolk, and finally to Suffolk Towers. According to an article printed in The Architectural Forum a year after its opening, it was made of a fireproof, concrete frame, with an exterior of brick, stone and terracotta. In 1989, former mayor Andrew Damiani told The Sun that “it was one of the first buildings

in Suffolk that is all reinforced concrete. You could take out all the bricks and it would still stand.”

Despite the fact that it was built 20 years before the first atomic bomb was dropped, Elliot had inadvertently created the perfect protection from nuclear fallout.

According to a 1961 government pamphlet on nuclear fallout, the safest place to be in the event of an attack, aside from a purpose-built shelter, is a tall, solid building.

After the initial attack, the pamphlet says, the biggest danger is the radioactive particles that are left in the air. While an actual bomb would only destroy a small area, “radioactive fallout could spread over thousands of square miles, covering a much greater area than the area endangered by fire and blast.”

These radioactive particles can penetrate like X-rays, causing serious damage, so the best thing to do it to “put as much mass of material as possible” between yourself and the particles floating in the air.

According to Williams, Suffolk Towers has a “huge basement,” which he believes to be the main shelter. This would have been the best spot to seek shelter, as the building itself and the ground around it would have offered the most protection. In the event that the basement was full, the “core” of the middle floors would have been the next safest spot. The top and ground floors are considered too

STORY AND PHOTOS

BY ELENA VITULLO CORRESPONDENT

open to outside air and would have been avoided at all costs.

Chris Claud, a researcher with the Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society, said that during the Cold War, downtown Suffolk was a busy city center. Restaurants and familyowned shops once lined the streets, and the people who owned and worked in them lived nearby.

“It’s amazing how much was going on down there,” he said. It only made sense, then, that Main Street would be the site of not just one but three fallout shelters.

Aside from Suffolk Towers, Tower 112 and the Professional Building are also designated fallout shelters. Like the Towers, those building are both tall and sturdily constructed, essentially the only two specifications.

The possibility of an attack was so pervasive that it was even addressed in the 350th Anniversary of Suffolk in 1958. In a series of “episodes,” local performers reenacted scenes from Suffolk’s past, including a visit by Capt. John Smith and The Great Fire of 1837.

They also addressed the future of Suffolk, with an episode titled “The Atomic Age!” Spectators were to be dazzled with “a simulated atom bomb blast!” They were also warned that “this could be a reality!”

Less than a decade later, Claud said, the Cold War had become an accepted fact of life. He says it was

never something his parents talked with him about, and he never saw videos, like the famous “Duck and Cover” cartoon, in school. “I just accepted that that was the way life was.”

While events like the Cuban Missile Crisis reminded the world how close they were to total destruction, he said, nothing really changed until the 1980s. He remembers watching the madefor-TV movie “The Day After,” which debuted in 1983 and presented the possibility of life after a nuclear attack. “People really started talking about it again in the community.” He even remembers hearing how then-President Ronald Reagan was disturbed by the possibility. “It was like a major event that reminded us about the danger.”

While there are still international tensions, the thought of a nuclear disaster seems so far away that many don’t even know what those little signs are for. As for Williams, the sign in his restaurant exists in a sort of limbo between novelty and usefulness.

“It’s good to know, I guess.”

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Page 28 | February 28, 2019

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STORY AND PHOTOS

BY ALEX PERRY STAFF WRITER

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

A Chuckatuck treasure As rain kept hitting the roof in January cold, and cars cruised through the Godwin BoulevardKings Highway intersection in Chuckatuck, Kent Gwaltney kept naming keepsakes inside his family’s store that span generations.

The Gwaltney Store, once a favorite grocery store for locals and later a gift shop for some loyal regulars, is filled with pieces of his very personal collection. Numerous model cars, trucks and service vehicles line the shelves. Kent and his wife, Carolyn, have frequented antiques shops and flea markets to add to the collection over the years.

Dozens upon dozens of firetrucks reflect Kent’s 45 years and counting as a firefighter.

They’ve also got tiny wreckers that remind Carolyn of her grandfather’s former wrecker service in Chesapeake.

There’s nostalgia on the shelves or framed on the walls. There’s also a large carousel horse named Apple.

Carolyn said they got the horse off Craigslist for her granddaughter Emma’s Mary Poppins-themed birthday party.

She suspected that it came from an old Applebee’s restaurant, hence the name.

The couple used to live in

the apartment right above the store. Now they live right next door, and Kent still finds himself coming back inside almost daily.

“A lot of times I just come in here, walk around, then go to work,” he said as rain kept pattering outside.

George Lafayette Gwaltney Jr., Kent’s grandfather, bought the store from Dr. L.L. Eley in 1929. His grandfather ran the store until he died in 1990, but his mark still lingers.

A picture on the walls shows Kent playing checkers with his grandfather. In the picture, they’re sitting on the same bar stools that stand inside there today, rusted and worn by time and use.

“You can see how over the years the board has worn down from people’s feet,” Kent said as he pointed at the grooves in the metal.

Drivers on Godwin Boulevard will spot an old Shell Gas pump outside the storefront. The pump actually belongs to the Greater Chuckatuck Historical Foundation, which is headquartered in a side room of the store.

Shell is the brand of gasoline that Kent’s grandfather sold, he said. That’s why he keeps Shell memorabilia displayed proudly.

When the foundation asked him what kind of antique gas pump

he would like to see by the road, he didn’t hesitate.

“They asked what brand I wanted out there, and I said nothing but Shell,” he said.

“That’s what granddad sold, and I’m sticking with it.”

After his grandfather died, his father, G.L. Gwaltney III, ran the store for several years until it closed in 2009. But Kent and his family later reopened the store as a gift shop in 2013.

They filled the store with ladies’ apparel, jewelry, oils and soaps and lotions and room scents. There were also cornhole boards out on the porch in the summer. Greeting cards and balloons from those gift shop days can still be found displayed inside.

Carolyn said the store was vibrant around the holidays.

A few wonderful employees would decorate for Easter, and there was a fully decorated tree every Christmas. All of it put a smile on Kent’s mother’s face.

“It was her dream to have this store as a gift shop,” Carolyn said, one that was just as fancy as she was.

The gift shop lasted for a few years before it had to close.

There were a few loyal customers — some from as far as Newport News — but there just wasn’t enough business to keep it afloat. It didn’t help that traf-

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald fic in the area has died down over the years, especially after the closing of Kings Highway Bridge, Kent said.

“I’d still like that bridge back,” he said.

He has no plans as of yet to rent out the building. He and his wife may do something with it after he retires, but for now the store will remain what it’s been for years: a time capsule of his family’s mark on the community, especially when it comes to his grandfather.

According to chuckatuckhistory.com, George had a generous system of credit at his store for when times were tough and customers needed to eat. There were meetings and meetups and hours of chats. The room attached to the store was even used for dancing on the weekends.

The foundation’s webpage on the store referred to an interview that George gave to the Norfolk Ledger-Star back in 1971: “I’ve worked many a long hour and shared many a disappointment with my friends, especially during the real hard times some years back, but sitting here thinking about it now, well, I’ve had the best opportunity a man can have in life, and that’s having a chance to know a lot of good people and being able to help them when they needed help.”

Kent is emotional when talking about his grandparents. He lived with his grandparents every weekend growing up, working beside George.

When he was just a small child, he would ride out on his bike for deliveries.

Carolyn recalled when she first met them, back when she was just 15 years old. She knew right off the bat that they were honest, hardworking people, and her husband has spent his life living up to that.

“He grew up with so much respect for his grandparents,” Carolyn said. “You don’t see that often now, acting to make your grandparents proud.”

His grandfather could have retired from the store years before he died, but he didn’t. Kent could have retired from Suffolk firefighting six years ago, but he hasn’t. His grandfather would understand that.

“He wouldn’t even think about retiring,” Kent said about his grandfather. “This was his store.

This was his life right here.”

February 28, 2019 | Page 29

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: t a k o o l A Italian paradise

At first, Gerry Jones, director of capital programs and buildings, didn’t realize the significance of a fountain in the Godwin Courts Building Park, and now 15 years later the Obici-Oderzo Fountain stands as a symbol of the bond between Suffolk and the town of Oderzo, Italy.

“The city had come up with the idea of a design competition in Italy for a fountain in Suffolk,” Jones said.

“It was open to the public to do this for a commemorative fountain that represented the sister city of Suffolk.”

Oderzo, Italy, is the birthplace of Amedeo Obici, the founder of Planters Peanuts and a fixture of Suffolk.

Plenty of entries were submitted, and Jones was tasked with going through them before realizing that none of them was going to work.

“We received entries, and they were not fitting for the area,” Jones said. “I looked at the criteria, and it gave no sense of how large the park was, the scale or how it was arranged. Some of these designs were so monstrous that they wouldn’t fit in the park.”

After some thought, Jones sent along a new packet for a new set of designs, and he was not disappointed.

“The following year, we got entries back and they were much more honed in and exactly what we were looking for,” Jones said. “The one that stood out the most for me was the one we chose to win. It was by far the most elegant and appropriate.”

Oderzo architect Paolo Rosso was the winner of the contest after sending in a detailed design featuring a water

jug mosaic, an Italian map and small nods to the Italian city and Obici.

“I remember sitting down after we saw his and saying, ‘Wow.’ Not only was his aesthetically pleasing, but what it represented was beautiful,” Jones said. “It’s just beautiful when you look at the details of it.”

Once they picked out a design, the city had the difficult task of getting it built. Not only was the fountain incredibly intricate, but it had to be converted from the metric system to the imperial system.

“I met with only a couple of contractors that did this kind of work,” Jones said. “It was a very specialized fountain (so) that not any contractor could do it.”

After the challenge of choosing the design, finding a contractor and translating and converting the design, the next challenge was matching the tiles to the mock-up the artist sent over.

“The architect had sent a full-sized mock-up with the colors, and we had to hand-match the tiles,” Jones said.

“We had to send it to the contractor, and he was able to pick out all of the tiles. It turned out beautiful.”

Rather than having the fountain use tiles purchased in the United States, Oderzo sent over the tiles as a gift.

The fountain was constructed in 2003 and was officially dedicated that August. The entire delegation from Oderzo made a week-long trip to Suffolk.

Main Street was excited for the Italian visitors and displayed Italian

Suffolk News-Herald | Strides 2019

flags on the light poles, Jones remembered.

The entire trip culminated with the dedication of the fountain, and Jones remembers the day clearly.

“I won’t forget that day. It was one of the hottest days,” Jones said. “It was in the high 90s at 1 p.m. and it felt like 100 percent humidity. It was worth it though. It was nice to see, and they were very happy with it.”

The rather toasty day was partially what made the day memorable, but Jones also remembers seeing the designer Paolo Rosso view it in person for the first time.

“When you see something done exactly how you designed it, it’s amazing,” Jones said. “I remember him telling me that we had done such a great job.”

In the first year of the fountain, Suffolkians thought of it as a wishing well. Jones remembers coins covering the entire bottom of the fountain.

However, that didn’t last for long.

Currently, the fountain needs some new tiles, because vandals have taken them off. This has been a recurring problem, according to Jones. Almost a decade after the fountain was built, people started taking the tiles, and the city finally ran out of replacement tiles from Italy.

The fountain still stands, however, as a little slice of Italy in the middle of Suffolk.

STORY AND PHOTOS

BY KELLIE ADAMSON STAFF WRITER

Strides 2019 | Suffolk News-Herald

February 28, 2019 | Page 31

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