THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407170047
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: AROUND THE BAY IN 50 DAYS
Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the
Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1.
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines
Reminders of past prosperity abound on Deal Island, a three-mile-long wedge of land split from Maryland's Eastern Shore by a narrow gut of water southwest of Salisbury.
A brick bank stands empty on the island's main road. Once-graceful skipjacks, most of them rotting, populate its tiny harbors. Turn-of-the-century Methodist churches dot the low-lying marsh - far too many of them for a population of 1,500 in the towns of Deal Island and Wenona and the villages of Chance and Dam's Quarter, just across the bridge from the mainland.
``It was the storm of 1933,'' Millie Gruver told me. ``The place never really recovered from that.''
I'd paddled into Deal Island earlier in the day and had tented up in a weedy field just off the parking lot of the four-table deli that Millie runs with Liz Simmons on the island side of the bridge.
Evidence is framed on the deli's walls: faded photographs of the 85-guest Anderson Hotel, a quarter-mile-long steamship
wharf, gas stations, seafood buildings, all reduced to splinters by that April storm. The island hosted a haberdashery, a millinery, ice cream parlors, two skating rinks, a poolroom, a couple of movie theaters and a carousel until then.
Today three businesses sell sandwiches or groceries, and there ends the list of Deal Island amusements.
The islanders survived the disaster with a strong Methodist faith that dates to the early 19th century, when traveling parson Joshua Thomas brought religion here and to island communities throughout the Bay in a log canoe. He's best remembered for boldly predicting to British troops preparing to attack Baltimore during the War of 1812 that they'd be whipped - which they were.
But Thomas' real legacy is devout conservatism. No alcohol is sold on Deal. ``We don't need it,'' one islander told me. ``We can get into enough trouble without it.''
Nowadays, the many churches, half with white congregations, half with ``coloreds,'' as blacks are still called along this remote stretch of the Chesapeake, can't support their own preachers. A couple of ministers ride a circuit among them.
``I went to one church, and I was one of four people in the congregation,'' Millie recalled. ``I went to another one and there were 11 people there. I went to another, and on the board it said the year's record attendance was 36.''
That the island didn't return to its former ways doesn't much bother Millie and Liz, retired Washington-area schoolteachers who moved here several years ago. Everyone on the island knows everyone else. Drive down the main road in an islander's car and you'll draw waves from other motorists. The speech is lilting, ancient-sounding, almost Elizabethan. Millie and Liz know a German woman who moved to Deal Island not knowing any English. She picked up the local accent, and today no one on either side of the Atlantic can understand a word she says.
The pace is almost lethargic. Over the past five years, between customers, Millie and Liz have played 1,470 games of rummy at one of their tables. ``That doesn't count the spades games, or the hearts,'' said Liz, who leads the series by 20 games.
On rare occasions, the island will be swept with excitement. When a Navy jet exploded offshore in 1992, Millie and Liz stayed open most of the day and night for salvage crews. A while later, an admiral landed his Navy helicopter in their parking lot to thank them personally.
But most local drama is small-scale. I witnessed this when I borrowed Liz's car to visit Wenona, a tight knot of homes and crab houses ringing a harbor at the island road's southern end. I found seven locals hanging around the counter at Arby's General Store playing tonk, a version of gin, in the midafternoon. Half the inventory around them was groceries - Hershey's syrup, sugar, cornstarch, pudding mix and traps for mice and ants. The rest was crabbing and boating equipment.
Arby Holland was dealing. He shuffled the deck and offered it to his teenage son, Joey. ``Cut it,'' Arby's brother, Gary, warned. ``Crooked dealer.''
Suddenly there was a commotion over by the door. Howard Bivens, a deaf man, was hollering and pointing outside, where Stacey Abbott, a blond 12-year-old, had just tossed his ball cap into the harbor. Howard, known in Wenona as ``Woo-Woo,'' marched behind the counter and snatched an identical cap from a high shelf.
``Gary, you'd better check out that hat,'' Arby said.
Gary moved toward Woo-Woo. ``You'd better put my hat back. Put it back or you'll need two hats to fit on that head of yours, and that's a fact.'' He plucked it from Woo-Woo's hand and replaced it on the shelf.
Stacey burst into the store. ``I threw his hat overboard,'' she announced proudly. ``I threw it in, but the dog jumped overboard, too, and it can't get out.''
``Well,'' Gary said, returning to his cards, ``if it can't get out by itself that's too bad.''
Stacey had moved to the counter beside me. ``Why did you go and throw his hat in the water?'' I asked her.
``Because it's fun,'' she answered. She smiled brightly.
Just then Woo-Woo let out a whoop and flew out the door, crossed the road and jogged toward a battered skipjack that was tied up at the dock. Stacey's dog stood there, dripping wet. It held a hat in its mouth. MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Wednesday. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
EARL SWIFT
Millie Gruver, left, and Liz Simmons have played 1,470 games of
rummy in their deli on Deal Island. ``That doesn't count the spades
games, or the hearts,'' says Liz, who leads the series by 20 games.
Photo
EARL SWIFT
Parson Joshua Thomas build this church on Deal Island in the 19th
century. Traveling in a log canoe, Thomas brought religion to Deal
and other island communities throughout the Bay.
Map
STAFF
by CNB