Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 12, 1992 TAG: 9201120159
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE TENNANT LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
HOUSES FALL, TAXES RISE, BUT MYSTERY MAN STILL MYSTERY
In the storybook town of Smithfield, the characters of childhood legends walk the streets in a single human form - the mysterious Dr. Rae Parker Jr.Below the gables of towering Victorian mansions and the gingerbread trim of squat cottages, those who know what to look for may sometimes glimpse the elusive Parker, the town's own version of Howard Hughes. Reclusive, yet generous. Mysterious, yet well-known.
He grew up a ladies' man, the son of a prominent doctor who built a thriving practice of his own. Then one day he closed up shop and vanished.
Now he is the millionaire Santa Claus who delivers gifts and then disappears, the Peter Pan who returns to play with graying boyhood friends, and the owner of a house empty for two decades that sleeps in beauty, waiting for restoration.
Parker is both hero and villain in this home-grown fairy tale. Praised by friends for his generosity, he has been tracked for months by county officials determined to make Parker pay 10 years of back taxes and tend to his decayed property.
Parker's life story is as hard to pin down as the doctor himself. He sporadically calls his boyhood friends, but they don't know where to call him. His former attorney advises leaving a letter on the front door of Parker's abandoned downtown house. But many suspect he wouldn't read it.
The doctor has no known relatives and no known address. The only known photo of him is from his high school days, but boyhood friends refuse to show it to anyone. What is known about Parker is pieced together from his friends, county records and history.
This is the story of the man a town would like to know.
Once upon a time, Parker, an only child, was born to the town's doctor and the doctor's withdrawn wife. He was a privileged son who lacked nothing during Depression-pinched times.
They lived in a beautiful house on a corner of Smithfield's Main Street, one of the first two-story houses in town. Dr. Rae Parker, formerly of North Carolina, was well-respected and a member of the School Board who practiced general medicine in the house.
His son grew up with a group of boys whose friendship would survive grade school, high school graduation, World War II and adulthood. Some of those pals now recall a normal childhood with a blond youth, a little on the short side, who never flaunted his material wealth, and who valued friendship above all else.
Many of his friends and acquaintances asked not to be identified because they don't want to offend him.
But the ladies of an older generation remember Rae Parker Jr. somewhat differently. Spoiled, said one; the kind of boy who threw mud on a white linen suit while the owner was wearing it, who sicked his dog on the mayor.
His friends don't remember him that way. As a teen, they say, Rae Jr. played tennis in high school, and belonged to an informal dance group that gathered at members' houses to play records and practice the latest steps.
He was a popular date because of his looks and excruciatingly good manners. But he never took a girl out twice, and he formed no serious attachment.
"He used to sort of squire the girls around," said one longtime Smithfield resident. "They thought it was quite a privilege if he'd take them to a dance."
After graduating from Smithfield High School in 1941, Rae Jr. went to Hampden-Sydney College, a private school near Farmville. He went to medical school at the University of Virginia, and the war interrupted.
While Rae Sr. was objecting to his son's draft notice, Rae Jr. quietly enlisted in the Navy. Uncle Sam sent him back to school, reasoning that fully trained doctors might be needed as much as sailors.
Rae Jr. received his medical license on July 15, 1947, and came back to Smithfield. His father died the next year, and his mother survived only a few months longer. Rae Jr. was alone in the big house.
Parker stepped into his father's shoes, then took three giant steps forward. He remodeled the offices in the basement, put in up-to-date equipment and refurbished the waiting room. Then he hung out his shingle, and the townspeople flocked to his door.
He raised chinchillas as a hobby. He was rumored to be wealthy. His inheritance included stocks and bonds, some said, and property. Parents trusted Parker with their children, and it was said the elderly folk wouldn't go to bed unless he was in town. But something wasn't quite right.
"He took over his father's practice and ran it very successfully for a long, long time," said one acquaintance. "I took my children to him. But it looked like he was just restless with it all. He slowed it down because he wasn't here a lot. Where he went I don't know. For years, nobody would see him."
Parker seldom cashed checks. Some of his boyhood friends paid cash for his services to make sure he got his money and to avoid canceled checks arriving two years after the fact.
A collection of Oriental rugs began to literally stack up on the doctor's floors, one on top of the other. He was said to pick up his mail at 3 a.m. He built a high brick wall around the back yard so no one could see in.
Finally, he closed his office while he was in his early 40s and disappeared.
The family house, neglected, began to fall apart. The roof began to leak, the windowsills started to rot. The paint peeled off.
To the people of Smithfield, who cherish their shaded streets and their storybook mansions, it was heresy. There, in full view, one of Main Street's original four houses was becoming an eyesore. The town took Parker to court in 1982.
At least, it tried. Nobody knew where to find him. The job of serving court papers on the invisible man fell to Smithfield Police Officer Charlie Phelps.
Phelps, now sheriff of Isle of Wight County, finally traced the elusive doctor to Newport News. Following the direction of an auto repair shop, he found Parker in a strip motel on Jefferson Avenue and served the papers. Parker had become the first person sued under Smithfield's historic preservation ordinance.
The town won the case after several years and a court hearing in which the judge took a firsthand look at the dilapidated house. Parker had the house painted a dull greenish-yellow. The roof was patched and new shrubs were planted in front. A little wreath was fastened to the front door. And then he went away again.
But his childhood playmates still heard from him occasionally. Sometimes years would pass, but then the phone would ring, usually late at night. It would be Rae Jr., offering tickets to the Ice Follies, a night out. Please come, he would say, and his boyhood friends would try hard to find baby sitters and rearrange their schedules so as not to disappoint him.
They never asked where he'd been, or what he'd been doing. He was still their friend, no questions asked, and friends didn't pry. And when he vanished again, they didn't try to find him.
When playmate John I. Cofer III died, Rae Jr. called his friends and got them all to attend the funeral as a group. He provided lunch and sent flowers in the group's name. A typical gesture, his friends said.
But when his friends held their 50th high school reunion this year, Parker didn't come. He had tickets, he said, to the UVa football game. He sent a beautiful floral centerpiece and his best wishes to the class.
What a guy, said his friends, at the same time wondering what makes him tick. An inferiority complex, said one, that incapacitates a brilliant man. Lonely, said one, but too insecure to face a group.
Some of his classmates might not have recognized him, had he come.
"He looks like not a jolly Santa Claus, but an unkempt Santa Claus," said one acquaintance.
The once-handsome blond boy is now described as overweight with a bushy white beard, white hair and unkempt clothes. He's been sighted at banks, in the Farm Fresh, walking along the street. He went to an antiques auction two years ago. Sometimes, he goes to the Cedar Point Club in Suffolk, escorted by a pal. But most of the time, nobody knows where he is.
The historic preservationists are not dissuaded. Jane McLaughlin, active in one such group, writes Parker a thank-you note every time he does something to improve the house. She even saw him one day in the Ben Franklin store, buying a door decoration.
"He seems to be getting into the swing of things," McLaughlin said. "He decorates the front door at Halloween and Christmas."
He was polite, she said, when she introduced herself. But he walked out the door and vanished, so she started writing letters again.
"I keep writing to him," McLaughlin said. "I figure one day he's gonna get sick and tired of hearing it."
Local historian Helen Haverty King takes a dimmer view. Someday, she said, he'll die, and the house will be available for restoration.
Perhaps so, because Parker has no known living relatives. What he does have is 10 pieces of property in Isle of Wight County with a fair-market value of $1.2 million, and up to 10 years of unpaid taxes, more than any other person in Isle of Wight. And county officials, tired of waiting, put some of the property up for auction last month.
It didn't take long for Parker to respond. A check for about $27,000 was promised by Christmas, and the county's tax attorney agreed to postpone action for about a month past the auction deadline.
By Dec. 23, only $9,857.77 had been paid, and that came from Daniel Keusal, a Maryland man who had hoped several years ago to build the massive King's Colony development on some of Parker's land. Keusal paid the taxes on five parcels owned by Parker, according to county Treasurer Beryl Perry, including the King's Colony site, a vacant lot in Smithfield and two parcels in Hardy District.
Parker's debt isn't willful thumbing of the nose by Parker, his friends say. It's a combination of unopened mail, absentee ownership and a man who has marched to a different drummer all of his 68 or 69 years. Payment probably just didn't occur to him, one said.
Parker has a history of such forgetfulness. In 1984 he arrived to make good on several years of accumulated taxes, but paid up only through 1981. Officials are confident he will pay in full this time.
And even the town doesn't push Parker too hard. Two doors down a side street from the family home is another Parker-owned house. Gray weathered wood, a few broken windows, and a porch painted a garish red and black violate the town's preservation ordinance. Town officials say they'll make him fix it up but not yet. They're willing to let him finish with the old homestead first.
And no one seems to care much about the rest of the property because most of it is undeveloped. Parker owns waterfront property on Burrells Bay along the James River and a large parcel near the James River Bridge that was slated for King's Colony, until that project landed in court.
The assessed taxes range from 70 cents a year on one tiny strip of land, to $1,523.90 a year on the farm along Kings Creek. Large or small, they're all in arrears.
Parker will pay up, his friends say. Town and county officials agree. The house ultimately may fall into the outstretched hands of preservationists. And everyone, except perhaps the mysterious Dr. Parker, will live happily ever after.