Peninsula In Passage

John H. Sheally II

Copeland farm house and boat house

Beth Lloyd

Beth Lloyd, Bennett’s daughter, grew up in Churchland and now lives in Norfolk but spent much of her youth on the farm . While I was in Churchland High School I worked in the Bennett’s Creek Market for the Matthews and spent summers and every weekend at the farm. I learned to milk cows and was driving a combine at age of 10. I was a tomboy and liked fetching eggs from chicken coop. We rode horses and at night, after baths and in our PJ’s, us kids would go fishing in the moonlight on our grandparents’ boat. It was like the best summer camp ever – year round. Christmas night everyone gathered at our grandparents and the home was filled with presents stacked wall to wall. There were Easter egg hunts you wouldn’t believe –with hard-boiled, not plastic, eggs So many children have never been exposed to farming, how hard and how rewarding the work was – or the sense of community among the farms. The Copelands farmed until 1992, Creamer said, when the Harbor View development reached the point at which it needed the property. Copeland farm was where Riverfront is now. The two lots where the original house and the brick house they built in 1955 stood remain unsold. Creamer says - Every time I drive over to Harborview, I am reminded of the dairy cows grazing where one of the lakes was eventually dug, the lush fields (in non-draught years) of corn, soybeans, peanuts, watermelons, cantaloupes and more. I go past the old home place, where the road takes basically the same path as the old dirt lane, which was almost a mile long, and I linger near the still undeveloped lot, which bears the old pecan tree my parents planted. I remember the barns and horses and I can almost smell the wonderful fragrances of a farm life well lived. There is a park with pier access directly over the spots where my parents grew those luscious watermelons. Beth Lloyd adds, “I think people think where Harbour View is now was vacant land and have no idea of its richness or that people would come from miles around for produce grown there.

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