Truckin' on the Western Branch

Nancy Glisson Wren Nancy was about 11 years old in 1953 when her family moved from Parkview to a house Floyd Martin built for them in Sterling Point. The land was a gift from my mother’s parents. There were dirt roads in Sterling Point then. My father, Eddie Glisson, worked in the Navy Yard introducing computers to Navy yards around the country. It was a difficult job because people were sure the computer was replacing human workers. I had two younger brothers—Charles and Bobby. Bobby is an educator and was principal at Churchland Junior High, Great Bridge High, Indian River High, and Jolliff Middle School. There was a haunted house in the neighborhood on the point overlooking the water—at the end of Sterling Point Drive. We had great fun romping on the grounds and in the house—in daylight. The Cherrys later bought the property and built a house with an in-ground pool—unusual in that day. Churchland was a working class/white collar community that instilled good core values, and told us to be the best we could be and not to count on an inheritance that wouldn’t be there. I went to the Churchland schools at the academy grounds. The new high school was under construction on High Street. We were bursting at the seams, and the seventh grade had class at the old wooden Masonic Temple. Billy Hux, a

Nancy Glisson Wren. Images by Sheally

younger man from West Norfolk, was our teacher, and we drove him crazy. The next year we entered the new school with 30 or so in our class including Brad Cherry who has been a friend since we were six-year-olds.

We wanted to take a senior class trip to New York City and raised enough money to take everyone—139 students plus chaperones including Gracie Lee VanDyck, Ken Burgess, and some of the other teachers. We did car washes and pigtail football games with the boys, including Brad Cherry, as cheerleaders. I was the quarterback and got my nose broken. Dr. Kirk took me to the hospital on a Sunday to get it checked. Gracie Lee was my basketball coach, and she took the team to James Madison University to check it out, hoping we’d become phys-ed teachers. But I went to the Medical College of Virginia to be a nurse. The only choices open to women then were secretary, teacher, or nurse. I met Ken Wren when we were kids. He lived in Green Acres, and we ran with groups. We married in 1962 when I was a senior in nursing school. We built a house in Taylorwood and after eight years moved to Point Elizabeth and raised the children, Ken Jr. and Susan, there where all the farms had been. The great thing about growing up in Churchland are the interconnections—it’s all about roots. That’s a gift—having a sense of place—a gift you get when you stay in the place you were born and raised.

121