WHO WE ARE: Combat Veteran Not Jaded By War
Post 56 member Chad Isabelle in Afghanistan 2004
By JOE VACCARO
American Legion Post 56
October 9, 2013
During this Year of the Veteran at the American Legion Post 56, we’re reminded that the persons we call friends and the organizations we belong to are usually a good indicator of who we are or what we aspire to be.
Some people might call these relationships character building. Character building usually begins at home and becomes a finely honed skill in places like church, school and military service. General Dwight D. Eisenhower once stated that character was “everything in leadership” but real character was basically “integrity”.
Throughout the years, military service has become a gristmill for “character building” where men and women are placed in difficult to almost impossible circumstances yet triumph over their circumstances.
The concepts of character and integrity are interwoven throughout a service member’s career whether they serve three years or 33 years. The idea of sacrificing one’s personal needs for the greater good for all isn’t a new concept. If you don’t believe that, ask former combat veteran and American Legion Post 56 member Chad Isabelle. [Read more…]
Cape Charles Business Association Presents Fall Festival
By GEORGE PROTO
President, Cape Charles Business Association
October 5, 2013
“Oktoberfest, Products of the Shore” is the theme of this year’s Cape Charles Fall Festival next Saturday, October 12, from 10 a. m. to 5 p. m. downtown along Mason Avenue.
The festival is aimed at promoting the Town of Cape Charles and enlightening visitors as to the things produced on the Shore and in the immediate area of the Chesapeake Bay.
Various service organizations will be on-hand to publicize their activities and raise money to continue their valuable contributions to our community. Participating organizations include the Cape Charles Volunteer Fire Department, Citizens for Central Park, Cape Charles Christian School, New Roots Youth Garden, and Rotary Club.
An underlying goal of this festival is to establish a format on which the Business Association can produce future festivals as a way to provide ongoing education to visitors and others as to who Cape Charles is, what we make, and what we do. [Read more…]
21st Annual Harvest Festival Hits All the Right Spots
All photos courtesy of Sunset Beach Inn and Grille.
October 5, 2013
What a beautiful day on the Shore for the 21st Annual Harvest Festival at Sunset Beach Resort — sunny and hot but not sweltering. “Things seemed to flow smoothly and people had a good time enjoying the event,” according to an organizer.
With 2,500 tickets sold at $40 far in advance, $50 beginning in September, it would be hard to imagine that anyone with a ticket stayed away.
“The new layout with the corporate tables in the center did seem to work well,” was the general opinion. But the time change (food was served at 11 a.m. instead of noon) got “lots of comment and mixed reviews.”
And for people who just won’t go home, there was the traditional “After Party” at Sunset Grille, which “did well and we had a lot fun!”
New Roots Kicks Off Fall Garden Club for Kids
Children water swiss chard and spinach at New Roots Youth Garden Fall Garden Club. (Photo: Tammy Holloway)
By TAMMY HOLLOWAY
October 3, 2013
A total of 25 kids from Cape Charles Christian, Kiptopeke, Home School, and Broadwater are participating in New Roots Youth Garden’s Fall Garden Club, a 7-week program held Thursdays from 4-5 p.m.
Club participants are planting and tending fall crops to be harvested and sold at the New Roots Farm Stand, an initiative that began during the 2013 Summer Garden Club. By creating and running a farm stand, the children learn many facets of business, including economics, handling money, sales, and customer service.
NRYG received several generous donations that made it possible to create the farm stand. The Virginia State University Farm Stand Extension donated many supplies, including a canopy tent, baskets, chalkboards, a calculator and a cash box. Also, the United Way of Virginia’s Eastern Shore selected New Roots Youth Garden as a Community Partner in 2013, allocating over $4,500 to supplement the existing program. Part of the United Way funds will be used to expand and market the farm stand, and the remaining funds will be used to perform infrastructure upgrades in the garden, such as installing a dry well, a shallow well, and a pump station. [Read more…]
The Way We Were: 9 Years Ago in the New York Times
Once McCarthy’s Hotel, then Cape Charles Hotel, now Hotel Cape Charles. (1930s penny postcard)
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
September 5, 2013
This week marks the 9th anniversary of the New York Times feature article “Waking Up Cape Charles.” The story is a useful and interesting benchmark of how far the town has come, how much things remain the same, and how history repeats itself. Although a 10th-anniversary retrospective would be the most appropriate, we just couldn’t wait another year. So here are excerpts from the article published September 3, 2004, by Tim Neville and annotated (in italics) by the Wave for today’s reader:
In 1991, houses in this town on the Eastern Shore of Virginia were so cheap that when Barbara Brown found one just four blocks from the Chesapeake Bay, she bought it with a credit card. The house — two stories and 1,500 square feet with three bedrooms — was in terrible shape, said Ms. Brown, who paid $15,000 for it. . . . Ms. Brown, a psychotherapist, gutted the place, rehabbed it and sold it in 1996 for $65,000. . . . Today it might sell for $250,000 or more.
That house, 123 Peach Street, has a tax value of $156,800 today. Barbara Brown has remained faithful to Cape Charles, and last year opened a new office on Mason Avenue, as reported by the Wave (click here to read).
[T]he economic boom is hard to ignore. Houses and commercial buildings that stood falling apart five years ago now sell for $250,000 or more. New homes boasting breezy British West Indies architecture — many approaching the $1 million mark — pop regularly out of the sand. McCarthy’s Hotel, closed for decades, is scheduled to reopen by Thanksgiving under a new owner who is restoring it to its 1930’s roots.
The “restoration” at 235 Mason Avenue, known as Cape Charles Hotel, looked nothing like the 1930s penny postcard pictured above. The Cape Charles Hotel ultimately failed, was sold by the bank, and underwent another extensive remodeling, opening in 2012 as Hotel Cape Charles. [Read more…]
Shore Found Complicit in Cape Charles Lighthouse Raid
Civil War-era encampment outside Cape Charles Museum (pay no attention to the power lines). (Wave photo)
By MARION NAAR
Cape Charles Museum
August 11, 2013
Were Shore people complicit in John Beall’s August 3, 1863, raid on the Cape Charles Lighthouse? Exactly 150 years later to the day, a majority of the more than 120 people attending Kellee Blake’s lecture at the Cape Charles Museum voted “yes.”
Blake, a noted Civil War historian, drawing on primary sources – letters, military documents, and news accounts — provided abundant detail of the highly successful operation, which was commissioned to Beall, then only 28 years old and at his request, by Confederate high command.
The Confederacy desperately needed supplies, and had information that valuable supplies were being stored on Smith Island at the mouth of the Bay where the new (second) lighthouse was under construction.
Beall and a crew of nine men started from Mathews County and on the morning of August 3, paid a surprise visit to lighthouse keeper William W. Stakes. Posing as fishermen, Beall and three men pressed Stakes for a detailed accounting of security, supplies, and citizenry on the island before summoning the remainder of his crew.
The full Beall force secured Stakes and his family, as well as any islanders who happened by, then worked for six hours dismantling the light and gutting the working lighthouse, as well as one under construction. It was well worth the trouble. [Read more…]
Pickin’ Peaches at Pickett’s Harbor Farms: Get ‘Em Now!
Tammie Nottingham started picking peaches at age 10 and never slowed down. (Wave photo by Sarah Golibart)
By SARAH GOLIBART
Cape Charles Wave
August 9, 2013
With a large gleaming peach in each hand, Tammie Nottingham stands regally in her orchard on Pickett’s Harbor Farms just south of the Town of Cape Charles. With tears in her eyes but a smile that never seems to leave her face, she admires her peach trees as she tells the girls that pick for her to “sculpt the baskets” and “have fun” in the orchard that she and her husband, W.T., planted 13 years ago.
Tammie began picking peaches when she was 10 years old in South Carolina. From around 1990 until about five years ago, she picked the entire peach orchard at Pickett’s Harbor. By that time the farm’s bounty exceeded even her veteran picking abilities.
“It all happened by word of mouth,” explained Tammie. Her first helper was a local, Christine Tankard, and over the years more have signed on to help harvest. There are 500-600 peach trees in the orchard, with more than 10 varieties that begin ripening in early summer and last until the first week of September.
“Five years ago, we moved from the corner of my porch and my kitchen to the farm shed,” Tammie noted. That’s where they now sell all their locally grown produce including tomatoes, watermelon, blackberries, and cantaloupe, to name a few.
Tammie, however, does not take credit for the farm’s success. “I would like to give the glory to my husband W.T.” she said. “He takes care of everything on this farm.”
“Both W.T.’s and my family are generational here on the Shore,” Tammie continued. “We’ve been here since people first came here.” She went on to relate that both her and W.T.’s families can be traced back to Martha Custis Washington. She and W.T. are the fifth generation of Nottinghams to work the farm, with their son Josh Nottingham being the sixth and granddaughter Carlee Parker the seventh. [Read more…]
Veterans from Two Eras Find Brotherhood in Shared Service
Veterans Bill Burton and Jack Woolley at the July 4th parade in Cape Charles.
By JOE VACCARO
American Legion Post 56
August 5, 2013
As the years pass, memories fade for most people — and for some who have served their nation during wartime it’s considered a blessing. One of the misnomers of armed conflict is that the people serving in the military welcome the fight and glory. But the fact is that the men and women serving in the military simply view it as a duty or obligation. They don’t place themselves in harm’s way for money or glory, but for each other.
The bonds of having served in battle or in a battle zone surpass any human emotion that can be explained in a few paragraphs. It becomes a brotherhood of emotion that at times surpasses the emotions for one’s own family. It’s that unexplainable sense of camaraderie that one feels in the presence of another who experienced the exhilaration of life and the horrors of death.
Although World War II ended some 68 years ago and Viet Nam ended 38 years ago, those 30 years of difference brought together two very different men and resulted in a lifetime friendship. Jack Woolley met Bill Burton 15 years ago, and the common denominator that brought them together was a woodcarving show at the Cape Charles Fire House. But what made them brothers were their war experiences. [Read more…]
