Truckin' on the Western Branch

My backyard was the “woods” where my dog, Sheba, and I explored along the creek, the old barn, and the forgotten Ballard family cemetery. I built forts in the woods with my neighborhood friends, played games, and rode mini bikes though the miles of trails. There was never a worry about the occasional tick, snake, or other creatures that roamed the woods with me. My backyard playground would give way in the late 1970s to a borrow pit dug to create the on-ramps to the new West Norfolk bridge and Western Freeway. Later, the man made lake and remaining woods became known as the Hoffler Creek Wildlife Foundation and Preserve, an organization established to protect the land from development. Because of my connection to the land, I found it a natural fit when I was asked to join the board of Hoffler Creek Foundation and, in 2008, serve as President. One of my fondest memories of living on River Shore Road was the old Ballard family house that was located at the end of the road. The beautiful, white, three-story Victorian home was one of the many farmhouses built in Churchland. The Ballard property was defined by a honeysuckle hedgerow and a long, winding, dirt and crushed oyster shell driveway that circled in front of the house and then continued down to the river’s shore. Rows of camellia bushes planted by Mrs. Ballard surrounded the back of the house. A huge magnolia tree was great for climbing, and from the top of the tree you could see for miles. My great-aunt Juliet Ballard Hawks told me many stories about living in the Ballard house in the early 1920s and ’30s. She told me of the Georgia regiment camping in the fields during the Civil War, the horse and buggy rides into Churchland for socials and dances at Churchland Baptist Church, and the Halloween parties when Mrs. Ballard would entertain the children of the neighborhood with cookies and punch.

I spent most of my summer days playing baseball and riding my bike into Churchland by way of the Merrifields’ path. Once in Churchland I’d visit my friends at the ball fields and make a stop at High’s Ice Cream for a chocolate milkshake before heading back home before dinner.

Judy Hathaway Judy Hathaway grew up on Black Walnut Farm on Hoffler Creek and was horrified when she saw an 18-wheeler as the new Churchland High symbol. That’s not what a trucker was! We had a truck farm and grew potatoes, carrots, beets, kale, spinach, green beans. We raised hay and corn for the mules. I had a Shetland pony, “Danny,” and a sulky. I wore sandals and overalls all summer and used to slide down haystacks. I didn’t have to work because we had plenty of farm workers. Our black farm workers lived in Sugar Hill across Hoffler Creek. A black couple ran a small store there. The workers labored for tickets, colored to specify the farm, and traded them at the store once a week.

Judy Hathaway. Image by Sheally

Molly Heffington was a seamstress that would come to your house and stay until all the new clothes were made—two or three days or maybe a week in big families like Ballards.

I had two younger brothers, and we were driven to the Churchland School because there were no buses. After school we waited at the Savage house to be picked up. Dr. Savage, pastor of Churchland Baptist Church, was my mother’s father.

Christmas Eve was at Dr. Savage’s house. On Christmas day the children of all the farm workers came to the house and my brothers and I gave out apples, oranges, and bags of hard candy.

Judy Hathaway in her days as a WWII WAVE.

I went to the Churchland School until the seventh grade when my father died from TB and the family moved to Cradock. I missed the farm. I still collect frogs because I always heard the frogs in Hoffler Creek.

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