Peninsula In Passage

Cornells Dr. George Cornell devoted more than two years of shovel and wheelbarrow labor to hand excavate the cellar under the living room of his century old family home. The house sits at the end of a long lane on Eagle Point Farm, tucked between what were the Gaskins and Ames farms on the Nansemond River. Two years into the work, on a foundation pier that was basically the cornerstone of the house, he found seven bricks marked with the date September 4, 1908 and the names of the Odom family who built the house. By hand chipping off the mortar he was able to make out the writing done in some sort of grease pencil. One name was that of William Franklin Odom, born in 1897. Odom, a sergeant in the Army, was killed in action in World War I on December 14, 1918 and awarded the Purple Heart. The Driver school gymnasium, now torn down to make way for a new wing to the school, was named for Odom and Hinton Albert Darden, another World War I casualty from Driver. Darden was killed in France in September 1918. A plaque honoring the two soldiers remains in the school. The bricks were another clue to the history of the house and land Cornell has called home since his parents, George and Elizabeth Cornell, bought it in 1946. Dr. Cornell and his wife, Phyllis, took over the house in 1985. Phyllis Cornell says - When Mr. Odom lost the farm it was owned by a bank who rented out rooms or spaces in the house. George knows of several folks who actually lived here then and has talked with them. Mr. Odom also may have paid rent to live here. Mr. J. W. Spence owned the farm after that and then sold it to buy a business. George Cornell’s parents had been living in Norfolk where his father worked for the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. They bought the farm when Cornell was 8 years old. They had been looking specifically for a waterfront home on shallow water and

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