Truckin' on the Western Branch

Rachel Benzie Rachel Benzie’s family came from Nash County, North Carolina, in 1941 when she was a teenager. Her father worked at the Naval base, and when she graduated from Wilson High, she worked for American National Bank in downtown Portsmouth.

“I worked in the bookkeeping department and would go the shipyard and Naval Hospital with a bag of cash to cash checks,” she said. “I always wore a dress or skirt below the knee and heels.”

She married Dean Sword, who managed a grocery store on the corner of Washington and County Streets. He was drafted and killed in the Battle of the Bulge when he was just 21. She was left a young widow with a small son, Dean Jr. In 1950 she married George Benzie, had a daughter, Regina, and went into real estate. She eventually opened an office in Churchland because, she said, that’s where the city was developing.

She bought her first home in Sterling Point.

I bought a lot from George T. McLean, who had bought the Carney farm west of the Churchland Bridge to develop Green Acres in 1939. It was a popular place to build, and he sold the last lots in 1947. McLean was a visionary and bought the adjoining Bidgood Farm to extend the fast-growing Green Acres. The entrance off High Street to the new section was named Sterling Point Drive. The McLean home was on the east side of Sterling Point Drive on the Manchester property. McLean was [a] wonderful businessman—very straightforward—who also developed Green Lakes and Elizabeth Manor. I had all the respect in the world for that man. The subdivision was never legally recorded as Sterling Point. The area is really sections 7, 8 and 9 of Green Acres, but because of Sterling Point Drive everyone referred to it as Sterling Point. Gomley Chesed Synagogue was the first thing built on Sterling Point Drive, and then 350 homes were built. George and I moved into the first one on April 24, 1950. It was a new area—with dirt roads. The Bidgood farmhouse was at the corner of High Street and Sterling Point Drive. Mrs. Bidgood always sat on the porch with a dress that went down to her ankles.

My lot cost $750, and I had Floyd Martin build a small five-room Cape Cod with two bedrooms and one bath for $7,500—it cost me $35 a month. I lived there for 15 years.

Early on, homeowners were concerned about the muddy streets as well as the lack of streetlights and mail delivery. The husbands met and talked about it, but it was the wives who formed Sterling Point Garden Club in 1954 and got some action.

In those days no one had any money. We just did potluck suppers in the neighborhood with board games and cards. Churchland was a very stable neighborhood with a low crime rate and a great place to raise children who used to fish in the tidal creek.

Rachel Benzie. Image by Sheally

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