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Thank you to PTLT Supporter, Becky Benton, in a Lasting Gift to her Beloved Uncle "Dabney" 1920-2020
On September 7,1944, Liege, Belgium was liberated. Dabney rode on a USA tank through town and finally saw the front of the house where he had been hidden in the attic. He was ordered to go to Paris for debriefing then returned to England.
Dabney was sent home on leave and he told the Statue of Liberty that she would never see him again. He never flew again. He reported back to the Base for training on the Norton System, but chose to come home with his Honorable Discharge as a Lieutenant. He was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Air Medal for heroic action while participating in aerial flight, two Caterpillar Pins, and a Special Award from Belgium Red Cross. On March 6, 1947 he married Irene Jones of Elkins, WV on her birthday. They were married for 52 years. Dabney and Reeney were part owners of the Bartow Drive-Inn but sold their share when they opened the Pocahontas Motel and Restaurant in 1953 at the top of Cheat Mountain, which they operated until the 1990's. The restaurant was famous for the German pot roast and homemade pies. Reeney passed away in May of 1999.
Dabney hosted hunting groups including deer, raccoon, and bear hunters. He also raised hunting dogs for coon hunting. He was an avid fisherman and taught all his nieces and nephews how to fish. He spent hours making intricate fishing flies. Dabney and Reeney moved to Olive, their mountain farm, when they retired. On this gentle farm, Dabney grew Christmas trees, raised peacocks and cared for his horses. Dabney believed in protecting the environment and preserving wildlife before it was fashionable. This special gift in Lloyd "Dabney" Kisner's memory will help preserve open space in perpetuity for future generations.
A heartfelt thank you,
Frank Allen, President of Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT)
An interview with Merideth Taylor
The Past is Alive
An interview with Merideth Taylor, author of Listening in: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland’s Mother County.
Shortly after arriving at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1990 to teach dance and theater, Merideth Taylor set about exploring the backroads of Southern Maryland, camera in hand. Her forays would result in a 162-page book of photos and stories – Listening In: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland’s Mother County.
Her book consists of brief entries accompanied by color photographs of one-of-a-kind built houses, stores, schoolhouses, churches, and barns – many far from their best years. Some still function, many are in advanced ruin, and some have since been demolished. Taylor’s stories depict imagined voices associated with each structure: children of tobacco workers, the young African American janitor at the schoolhouse at Sotterley Plantation, a moonshiner, a boardinghouse operator, and many more. Some voices are in the first person, others in the third person.
What comes through, in story after story, are takes on people connected to land – by virtue of farming, hunting, fishing, and engaging in everyday activities, such as school kids collecting firewood for their one-room schoolhouse. Taylor’s ghost voices echo a culture that hadn’t yet been overtaken by shopping centers, housing developments, car dealerships, fast food, and branch banks – such as in this partial entry:
Growing up on a farm by Chesapeake Bay, life was hard, but the family had good times, too. They were sharecroppers back then and didn’t have much. . . . Their dad wasn’t big on hunting and oystering, but he was a hard worker. Every year when the tobacco market time came, he’d ride up to Hughesville with Mr. Ford, the farm owner, and come back with a few hundred dollars. He hadn’t gone past the fourth grade in school, and the family was never sure whether that money was truly their fair share. But Mr. Ford ended up selling them a little piece of land with their house on it for a price they could afford, so they figured he was basically a fair-minded man. It was hard work, and the family never had money to spend, but they loved each other. They loved being together. And they learned a lot of important lessons about life, about how to stick together and do right by people.
In the following Q&A, Taylor tells how she came to bring these echoes to the page as well the photographs that connect them to the Southern Maryland landscape.
Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust: What inspired you to make something more of your exploratory road trips in Southern Maryland? Was it an evolution of an idea or did you know from the start what you wanted to accomplish?
Merideth Taylor: I took the photographs over a period of many years with no particular use in mind other than enjoying them hanging in small frames on the wall. I was lucky enough to be able to retire in 2012, and retirement provided me with the time to explore creative pursuits I had put on the “back burner” due to a heavy workload teaching, choreographing, and directing at the College. The idea for the book simply bubbled up because I had time to relax and think.
PTLT: You’ve lived in St. Mary’s County for close to 30 years. What have you observed in terms of changes to its landscape? Have you ever retraced your routes taken in the researching of your book and, if so, what changes have you noticed in what you photographed?
MT: Thanks for asking that - it gives me a chance to rant a little. The environmental changes since we arrived in 1990 have been enormous. The county could still have been described as having a “rural character” then, if not being actually rural. Former tobacco fields were just beginning to sprout houses here and there. There were many forested areas as well as farms. Willow’s road, for example, which is our main route into Lexington Park, was wooded almost all the way from Rt. 5 to town. It is now a strip of housing developments, storage businesses, and an industrial park. It’s painful to me to drive down it now, because I feel the loss. I do drive by many of the houses I photographed, and some are no longer there. I still feel attached to the sites. But I don’t feel romantic about that loss or the passage of a way of life so much as I feel very sad about the environmental degradation and the disappearance of natural habitat. This was one of the last relatively undeveloped peninsulas on the east coast. Though there are still pockets that seem rural, suburban sprawl and strip malls are becoming dominant.
PTLT: What are some of your more memorable entries in Listening In?
MT: If you mean are there favorites, not really. I identify more strongly with some than others maybe, because they’re closer to my own experiences. There’s one on development that reflects very much what I said about the way I feel about the loss of forests, farms, and natural surroundings.
PTLT: How do you see these structures connecting with the landscape in which they were built? Is it possible these structures “belonged” in the landscape while what has been replacing them hasn’t?
MT: Not sure. The buildings I photographed had a purpose, and that was to serve family needs in a way that was affordable, and, to the extent possible, pleasing to the eye. They were pretty utilitarian, but also reflected the skill and aspirations of the builder. The owner-built homes, even though they were, by and large, traditional and relatively simple, seem to have character in a way that the tracts of uniform, big, boxy houses don’t have. They are human scale. Generally, more inhabitants shared less space. Conspicuous consumption, whether of space or objects, was not rampant as it is today. And people lived much of their lives outside. Today we have big houses with small yards because lives are lived indoors, connected to the outside world through electronic devices.
PTLT: Do you see an inevitability in what’s happening to the region’s landscape, or if not completely inevitable, then what could mitigate the losses?
MT: Since the changes are largely fueled by population growth, mitigating factors are limited. And there is a strong cultural belief that growth is good; growth is equated with progress. While, it is good that people have homes and have jobs, we are seeing now the costs of unchecked growth and consumption, and we are facing a climate crisis. We can learn to cooperate and join together to take measures to reduce our carbon footprint. Science has defined the problems and led us to potential solutions. What is missing is the political and popular will to act. So maybe the inability to overcome our political polarization is the bigger crisis. But there are many promising signs. People are beginning to recognize that, when it comes to the health of our planet, we are all affected and all connected. We are all in the same boat.
PTLT: What would you like to see people get from reading Listening In?
MT: I hope they will gain a new perspective on local history and feel a connection to this interesting place and its diverse community, and that, whether they know it well, are newcomers, or have never been here, that they empathize with the characters and relate to their experiences. Of course, I hope they will enjoy it!
Listening In was published by George F. Thompson and is distributed by University of Virginia Press. It is available through the publisher and distributor, as well as in local shops, and on Amazon. Link to the author’s page at GFT Publisher: http://www.gftbooks.com/books_Taylor.html
Are we condemned to watch our birdlife disappear? No. Not as long as we’re willing to act. What can be done?
For starters, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has suggested “7 Simple Actions” that individuals can take to protect birdlife, such as treating window glass to avoid bird collisions, keeping cats indoors, and letting your land get a little wild with native plantings
In addition, if you own a piece of land, you can add “Simple Action Number 8” -- protect your own fields, forests or farmland. Loss of habitat is the most serious cause of bird declines. Over 90 percent of the land in Maryland is in private hands, not public parks or wildlife refuges, so private landowners must be part of the solution. The land you love can be protected forever if you attach a “conservation easement” to your deed. Such easements can be facilitated through your local land trust.
In St. Mary’s County, the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT) has protected over 5600 acres of private land working with more than 30 willing landowners and government partners. And if you’re not a landowner, you can still protect land by contributing to your land trust. That’s what Wild Birds Unlimited has done by supporting the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT). You can too.
new PTLT easement
On December 9th the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust closed on yet another easement: a 56-acre property on Medleys Neck Road in Leonardtown owned by the Thorne family.
This beautiful parcel consists of nontidal wetlands, forests, and roughly three acres of cleared land for the farmstead and a farm field. Two primary nontidal streams flow through the forested area, providing approximately 3,400 linear feet of forested riparian buffer. The wooded section includes dense stands of laurel, holly, and some specimen-sized trees of varying species. There are also as many as several acres of healthy stands of lycopodium (club moss).
The Navy, through its REPI program (Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration), provided funding for half of the value of this conservation easement while the Thornes generously provided a donation for the balance. After closing, PTLT will co-hold the easement with the Navy and with Maryland Environmental Trust to protect the property in perpetuity.
Rose Thorne recalls fond memories of growing up on the property with her siblings and playing in the woods. She says the Thornes are not only thrilled to be able to protect this land for future generations but also as a remembrance of their parents for giving them such a lovely place to grow up.
It’s Time for a Timeless Approach to Tick Control
Let’s try controlled burns to curb tick-borne diseases - by Frank Allen
Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Powassan Virus disease, Borellis miyamotoi disease, Borrelis mayonii disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Alpha Gal. All these maladies are carried by ticks. The problem (and the suffering) is getting worse.
All appear to come from the environment. A genetic study by Yale School of Public Health found that Lyme has been endemic in eastern North American forests for at least 60,000 years, longer than people have been known to be here. Yet, it wasn’t until 1975 that the first case of Lyme was “discovered” in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Alpha Gal was first reported in 2002. Since then, the number of victims of Alpha Gal has exploded. All these diseases are at a minimum debilitating and at worst fatal.
Why have these diseases suddenly appeared in the population to cause such suffering? There are a few clues, beginning with human activities, such as forest management and wildlife management.
Example of wildlife management: White-tailed deer almost became extinct at the start of the Twentieth Century, only to be reintroduced in the 1920s. In the last few decades, their numbers have soared, and as a result, tick numbers have also exploded, since the ticks now have plenty of food on the hoof.
Forest management: Before the colonists arrived, the indigenous population managed the land through controlled burning of the forests. This practice favored such fire-resistant trees as oaks at the expense of fire-sensitive trees, such as maples.
Recently the Nature Conservancy has undertaken controlled burns on some of its Maryland properties. These properties, in the western part of the state and in the Delmarva region, have since experienced better control of invasive plants, reemergence of natives, and greatly reduced tick populations.
Similarly, the Audubon Society’s North Carolina chapter staff undertakes controlled burns on its 3,000-acre Donal C. O’ Brien Jr. Sanctuary on Currituck Sound near Corolla. From late winter through early April they burn a third of its marsh grass in a yearly rotating pattern that allows wildlife to shift to other parts of the property. They consider the burns essential in providing food, shelter, and nesting material needed for birds to survive. The practice mimics nature’s renewal cycle aided by lightning strikes that ignite the grasses.
Since cures for tick-borne diseases currently range from difficult to impossible, it makes sense to reduce risk of acquiring these diseases through such practices. Strategic burns are much more beneficial than eradicating ticks by pesticides, which are expensive and devastating to nearby forest and aquatic dwellers.
“It’s time to consider reducing tick populations using an ecosystem approach with a combination of wildlife management and controlled burning in our fields, brushlands, and forests,” says Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust President Frank Allen. “As an asthmatic, I believe that controlled burning is one of the few forms of combustion that should have a place in our communities.”
Frank Allen is President of the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust. For more information on the controlled burns in Maryland, visit: Nature Conservancy. For more information on the Audubon Society’s North Carolina chapter burn program, visitPine Island Audubon Center. For more information on ticks and tick-borne diseases, visit: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.