Peninsula In Passage

Everything shut down on Sunday and everyone went to church where they also talked over their plans for the week. We were there for two weeks every year and loved it. Every farm had a pier on the creek. Farmers did business with a broker, communicating by rail or Teletype to ask what was the going price for potatoes? Carrots? The area was blessed with rich black sandy soil Crops were loaded onto boats at the pier and produce could be in New York City in a day. When the crops moved south where they could be harvested earlier, the farmers turned to alternative crops. They grew fields and fields of gladiolas. In 1934, in the middle of the Depression my mother wanted out of the Katherine Street house. We moved to 112 Bosley Avenue, a house with seven bedrooms and three baths. My father, M. A. “Mac” Cross, was the youngest director on the board of Farmer’s Bank of Nansemond. The bank loaned Amedeo Obici the money to start Planters at a time when the northern banks would not. My father built the original Obici Hospital for Obici. Joyce Carter Joyce Carter has a birthday once every four years. Not that she’s worried about age – she was born on February 29 and has packed a lot of living into 70 some years.

Born in Farmville, Virginia, during the Depression, she lived for a while in a house that later became part of Longwood College, now Longwood University, before moving back with family in Bennett’s Creek. My great grandfather, Abram Milteer, was from Gates County and Whaleyville. In 1893 he bought a farm where the Bennett’s Creek Marina is now. His land abutted the John Eberwine farm and the old Matthews farm. His oldest boy, Walter, was my grandfather who owned a wholesale grocery business in downtown Suffolk. He lost it in during the Depression but never claimed bankruptcy and he paid off all his debts. After the Depression he ran a store in the marina building and lived there. Grand Daddy and Dad ran the brick service station, a Shell station. My father was Walden Smith and my Mother, Dorothy Smith, and they lived on the side of the red brick store beside the bridge.

My father was a bridge tender on the Bennett’s Creek bridge near the store and I used to count cars on the bridge for the state highway department. I’ve opened that bridge many times. You ran as fast as you could to pull the gates down on both ends of the bridge, then you got a big long lever from under the bridge to put in the turn lock that turned one way to unlock the bridge and back to open the bridge.” During the 1933 hurricane the bridge blew open and my father had to crawl out and chain it. Annah Eberwine Cross was one of my best friends. We knew all the woods and both had BB guns. We used to row our boat to explore and crabbed every day. Our lives were intermeshed with Chuckatuck and Crittenden and Eclipse. I went to the old Driver school and then Chuckatuck High School and used to spend the night with friends in Chuckatuck to take part in after-school activities. Dorothy Davis was a teacher at the school then and used to ride the bus with the students.

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