THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602010141
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 163 lines
FOR TWO YEARS, Edna M. Hendrix has been following a trail that few have explored.
It leads back into time and hidden along the way are some little known pieces of Virginia Beach history - at one turn, a 200-year-old list of slaves and their masters, at another, names of black voters at the turn of the century.
Day in and day out, Hendrix has followed it, searching for black history in old Princess Anne County. One bit of information leading her to another, Hendrix was spurred on by ``just the idea that we did not have any history written on blacks here.''
She has combed through courthouse records and archives from here to Washington, and she has picked every brain she can find for memories of the past. She has amassed photos and articles from newspapers and gathered information from museums, private collectors and ordinary citizens.
The results of her work are compiled in her new book, ``Black History, Our Heritage, Princess Anne County, Virginia Beach, Virginia.''
The book includes more than 200 photographs, historical text and copies of documents such as the Roll of Colored Voters in Princess Anne County 1902-1903 or Listing of Slaves and their Masters in 1795.
The 200-page book begins with a 1699 court document Hendrix found. The case concerns a white woman who was taken to court because she had a mulatto child. The father was shown to be a slave of Argoll Thoroughgood and the woman was fined 500 pounds of tobacco.
Hendrix will unveil her book at Portraits of the Past, an event she is sponsoring from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 10, at the Holiday Inn Executive Center on Greenwich Road. The book also will be available at Missing Pages of History, an awards ceremony honoring the New Journal and Guide newspaper, at 8 p.m., also on Feb. 10 at the Holiday Inn.
A celebration of black history in Hampton Roads, Princess Anne County in particular, Portraits of the Past will feature many of the 300 photographs that Hendrix collected in preparing for her book. She also will have artifacts on display. One is a ceramic bowl which once belonged to Hannah Caffee, a former slave who is buried in Mount Zion AME Church cemetery on Princess Anne Road.
``I found her great-granddaughter, Bertha Caffee, and talked with her,'' Hendrix said. ``And she even had some artifacts that belonged to her.''
In talking to Bertha Caffee, Hendrix learned that Hannah Caffee was a nursemaid to the Nimmo family children who lived on a farm across Princess Anne Road from where Mount Zion Church is now. Hannah Caffee's simple gravestone says she was born Sept. 18, 1831, and died Dec. 17, 1907.
Hendrix also will have information on display on other individuals as well as institutions like churches and schools. For example, she has photos of eight, one-room school houses attended by African Americans, including photos that feature children and teachers. And she has a nail and a bowl found in the foundation of Piney Grove School which was built in the late 1800s and torn down last year.
Hendrix, who has no background in history, got swept up into her project several years ago after she and a colleague, Regina Leathers, began publishing Heritage Discovered, a black history newspaper.
``Putting out that paper, that was the beginning of it,'' Hendrix said. ``I started collecting so many things that I started doing some background work. Then I found myself in the library more than in the office, so I closed it down and started the book.''
She closed one office down only to open another in her parents' home in Aragona. File boxes of information are on the floor and a computer stands at the ready.
``My mother says, `You've turned my dining room into an office,' '' Hendrix said, laughing.
Her whole family pitched in to help. Her two youngest children, Vincent Darden, 11, took a lot of pictures for her and Marsha Darden, 12, helped with proofreading and typing.
Hendrix's parents live on land in Aragona that has been in the family since 1914. Hendrix, 45, grew up there and graduated in 1969 from Union Kempsville High School, the last year of the school's existence. Union Kempsville was an all-black school that integrated only a couple of years before it closed.
Hendrix's dad, Edmon Hawkins, a native, too, gave Hendrix the names of old families she should contact. ``He helped me a lot,'' she said. ``I even talked to folks 95 years old and now they are dead.''
Although her father's family moved to the area around 1900, Hendrix's mother's family goes way back in old Princess Anne County. Her mother, Thelma Hawkins, was born a Painter and her great-grandfather, Charles Painter, was a friend of black political activist Willis Hodges, Hendrix said.
Hendrix did not anticipate discovering figures like Hodges, a free black who fought the white establishment before the Civil War and was elected to office following the war. ``I was surprised at all the political activity blacks were involved in at the time of Willis Hodges,'' she said, ``how many were elected to office.''
A descendant of Hodges, Sandy Walker of Washington, D.C., will attend Portraits of the Past to lead a genealogical workshop. Genealogists also will be interested in seeing the 30 or so copies of certificates of freedom and the compete register of free blacks in Princess Anne County, 1830-1862 that Hendrix will have on display.
Panel discussions, children's activities and video presentations will take place throughout the day. Hendrix also will present two new booklets, ``A Glance of Black History in Portsmouth, Va.'' and ``Sketches of Negro History in Norfolk County, Va.''
Local history collector Edgar Brown, who wrote the preface to Hendrix's book, will bring a display of photos and documents that focus on Virginia Beach history in general. Some of Brown's old photos such as one of Seaview Beach, an all-black beach on the Chesapeake Bay, are included in Hendrix's book.
The Life-Saving Museum of Virginia also will bring an exhibit on blacks who served in the U.S. Life-Saving Service at Cape Henry. Hendrix has included information on the men in the book, too. Fielding Tyler, director of the Life-Saving Museum, said that black history is thought to be tough to reconstruct because not many records were kept.
``But I think she's proving that it can be done,'' Tyler said. ``You've got to keep looking and searching. It's there if you look.''
Despite all the photos, artifacts and records she has gathered and all the work she has accomplished, Hendrix thinks there's a lot more looking and searching to be done. ``I just stopped,'' she said. `` I had to stop somewhere.
``There's much more that can go into it,'' she went on. ``I'm hoping after the book comes out that someone will step up and do some more.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos, including color cover by Charlie Meads.
Edna Hendrix, holding a brick from the foundation of the original
Mount Zion Church, is surrounded by material she used to write her
book, "Black History, Our Heritage, Princess Anne County, Virginia
Beach, Virginia.
A mule-pulled road machine grades a dirt road in Princess Anne
County. The photo was taken in 1909.<\
Hannah Caffe (1830-1907), whose gravestone is pictured on the cover,
belonged to Nimmo plantation. She is pictured here with her son,
Abner Caffee, around 1900.
The original Union Kempsville High School, a segregated school, was
located on South Boulevard.
Teacher Walter Becket headed this Blackwater School classroom in
1946.
Students use a water pump to wash outside Newlight School in 1946.
Graphic
WHEN & WHERE
The program, Portraits of the Past, will take place from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. and the Missing Pages of History awards ceremony will take
place at 8 p.m., both on Feb. 10 at the Holiday Inn Executive
Center, 5655 Greenwich Road. Tickets to Portraits of the Past are $5
with children under 16 admitted free with a parent. Tickets to the
awards ceremony are $10. Tickets may be purchased at the door or
ahead of time at Silver & Gold U Hair Salon, 5040 Virginia Beach
Blvd., and at the New Journal and Guide, 362 Campostella Road in
Norfolk.
``Black History, Our Heritage, Princess Anne County, Virginia Beach
Virginia'' will be available for $30 in soft cover at both events.
Books also can be ordered by sending your name, address and a check,
payable to Blessed Deliverance, to 5000 Haygood Road, Virginia
Beach, Va. 23455.
For more information on all activities, call Edna Hendrix at
557-9724.
KEYWORDS: BLACK HISTORY by CNB