THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130340
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 17 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines
On Sept. 9, 1961, Russia was making plans to build a wall around East Berlin, the United States was preparing to withdraw 400,000 troops from Germany and the Aragona Community Recreation Center was dedicated at what was then the end of DeLaura Lane.
The dedication ceremony marked the realization of a dream that had its inception 2 1/2 years earlier when several dozen residents of the proud young community decided that life in Princess Anne County's fast-growing subdivision would be nicer if they had a community gathering place for all those postwar babies and their families.
Developer John Aragona deeded the land, and a hard-working group of citizens went about raising the funds for a building. Three of them had enough faith in the project to guarantee the $24,000 building loan.
``Ike Snyder, Sandy Dunnington and Robert Harvey personally signed for the loan,'' said Joe Gayle, a retired C & P Telephone Co. employee who remembers the early days in Aragona Village. ``That took a lot of guts back then.''
Gayle and his wife, Virginia, were among the handful of members of the non-profit Aragona Community Recreation Center board of directors who gathered recently in the home of Bill and Donna Harvey Freeman to talk about the old days.
The occasion was a bittersweet one for the group. After a decade of declining interest in the center and its activities, the board approached the city earlier this year with an offer to sell the property, which includes the four ball fields used by the Aragona-Pembroke Little League and a large, recently repaved parking lot in addition to the 5,000-square-foot building.
At the $70,000 price, it was an offer the city was happy to accept. The deal was completed in late June.
``We're glad to have those ball fields over there,'' said Ray Emerson of the Virginia Beach Department of Parks and Recreation.
As for the building itself, its fate is less certain. ``It's a 30- to 36-year old building,'' Emerson explained. ``It's going to take a lot of work to bring it up to code.'' It is expected that the building will be included sometime in the city's five-year capital improvement budget.
``We may approach other city departments to see if they're interested in using the building and have funds to help with the costs,'' Emerson added.
As far as the center's board of directors are concerned, they'd like to see the building saved, if only as a memorial to the good times there.
``Pembroke Mall wasn't here when the center opened,'' said Donna Harvey Freeman, whose late husband co-signed the original note.
``We had movies here on Saturday afternoons and teen and preteen dances that the board members chaperoned. We even opened on Sunday afternoons for ping-pong and games and of course the Little Leagues used the ball fields.''
Kids were king in Aragona in those days. But by the early 1970s, things were changing.
``The kids became so destructive that we went to doing things with the older folks,'' said Donna Freeman's husband, Bill, a retired Navy man who has been a board member since the organization was incorporated.
For years the organization held monthly senior citizens dinner dances that drew older adults from as far away as Norfolk and Portsmouth. Not surprising, since for $1 or less the seniors got a good solid meal and an evening of entertainment and dancing.
The corporation also gave scholarships to students from Bayside and Princess Anne high schools, supported the Davis Corner Volunteer Rescue Squad, gave food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas, helped fund several community improvement projects and neighbors in need.
``If someone had a fire, we'd just stroke them a check,'' said Gayle, who first moved to Aragona in 1958.
Although $100 bonds paying a healthy 6 percent were sold to help finance the building in 1962, the major source of funding over the years became the weekly bingo games, which continued until this April.
While running the bingo games became an ever-increasing burden on the directors, the games themselves were the source of one of the most amusing incidents in the group's history.
``We had a lot to do with legalizing bingo in the state,'' said Bill Freeman. ``Especially after we got raided,'' added board member Dorothy Webster, a retired city employee.
The story of the raid, which happened sometime in the early 1970s - no one is quite sure when - has only improved with the years.
At that time bingo was legal in churches, but not elsewhere. On one particular evening plans were made to raid a non church-connected bingo game.
``We think they were looking for the Knights of Columbus,'' Bill Freeman said, his tongue only slightly in his cheek, ``but they couldn't find them so they raided us instead.''
Whatever the reason, police arrived at the Aragona site, arrested the players and workers and carted them and their bingo paraphernalia off to jail in buses.
``The paper ran a picture the next day with a caption about the arrests of `little old ladies in tennis shoes,' '' Bill Freeman said. ``It even made the network news.''
Legend has it that the wife of a high-ranking retired police official from a neighboring city was among the players who was booked.
``It was the only time I ever went to jail and I was never so scared in my life,'' recalled Donna Freeman, who had been working bingo that evening.
``Some of those who went to jail that night were still playing when we closed back in April,'' Webster said.
On Aug. 1, eight of the nine board members gathered for one last picture in front of the now shabby building with its ``No Trespassing'' sign.
Once again the stories were told, the memories brought to life. ``We're going to have a big ceremony to give away the rest of our money,'' board member Norma Russo said in her husky voice.
It will be a fitting end for the group that has been closely involved with the Aragona community since the days when mortgage payments on a three-bedroom home were $80 a month and the master bedroom could be completely furnished for $123. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Bill and Donna Harvey Freeman, who were among the charter founders
of the Aragona Community Recreation Center in 1961, now are among
the board of directors who sold it to the city. Among the most
remembered stories of the building was a bingo raid in early 1970s.
by CNB