THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602220135
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
When Deacon Millard Reid Sr. passed away last week, a little bit of old Princess Anne County passed with him.
He was of that generation of African Americans, born near the turn of the century, who were the link between those who were the last generation born in slavery and those who were the first born under the laws designed to guarantee civil rights for all.
I had the pleasure of spending the better part of an afternoon with Deacon Reid when I was working on a story about the 125th anniversary of Piney Grove Baptist, the church he had called his spiritual home for all of his 84 years.
``You really need to talk to Deacon Reid,'' I was told by just about everybody I contacted for information about the congregation that was founded by former slaves in 1870.
And so it was that I sat in the pastor's study one day and listened to the fascinating history of the man who had grown up on the same plot of land where he still lived, right next door to the pretty brick church.
The deacon's story was not just of the church, but of the life lived by the proud, hard-working, God-loving African Americans of early 20th century Princess Anne County.
``My parents were members (of Piney Grove),'' he told me, his voice strong, his narrative clear, ``and I've been going to church here for as long as I can remember. There were nine of us and we all came to Sunday School.''
He talked of growing up in the country among the tall pines and the rich farmland. He talked of the education he had received at the small grammar school school for black children located on the church grounds and of the fine preachers Piney Grove had attracted through the years.
Then he went on to tell me about the time he found it necessary to leave the county for a while. That was in the 1920s when he packed his valise and went off to board with a family in Norfolk so that he could attend Booker T. Washington High School.
``There wasn't any high school for black folks in the county back then,'' he explained. ``After I finished grammar school I got on the train right here at the Courthouse in September, rode into Norfolk and didn't come back again until Thanksgiving.''
He finished school, then taught for a year in what he referred to as ``one of Mr. Roosevelt's special training programs.'' During the summers he helped with the crops at home and worked another job as well.
He became a waiter at the Cavalier Hotel, one who quickly became popular with the fashionable clientele who came to catch the sea breezes in those gentler times. ``People used to come back year after year and ask for me to wait on their table,'' he added proudly.
Taking a hard look at his finances in the difficult days at the depths of the Great Depression, he made a decision that was to change his life forever. He would, he decided, come back to the county to stay.
``I found I could make as much in a month waiting on tables at the hotel as I could in a year teaching,'' he told me. And so it was that he continued to work at the Cavalier until he retired in 1972, 45 years after he had taken a summer job there as a high school student.
Through the years he worked hard, married, raised a family, joined the Masons and stayed active in the church he had been carried to since before he could remember.
Musical by nature, he began playing the organ in church when he was 14 and never really stopped. Sometime, more than half a century ago, with the blessing and help of his employers at the Cavalier, he became Piney Grove's principal organist.
``I'd serve Sunday breakfast in my uniform,'' he told me, ``then leave the hotel at 10:45, jump in my car and be in church just in time to play at 11.''
The quick turn-around was possible, he explained, because he had only to exchange his white waiter's jacket for a black suit coat and because the road from the Oceanfront to the Courthouse was both lightly traveled and - a rarity at that time - paved.
``You could make good time down here back then,'' he told me, shaking his head as we watched the early afternoon traffic from nearby Kellam High School clog the two lanes of Holland Road in front of the church.
In addition to playing the organ, Reid sang in some of Piney Grove's choirs, directed others. He served the church in just about every capacity from sexton to Sunday school teacher to financial secretary at one time or another.
In the early 1950s he received the church's highest honor when he was ordained a deacon.
When I interviewed Reid last year he was still serving as a deacon, even still playing the organ when he was needed.
``I just enjoy working in the church,'' he told me. ``All my life I enjoyed it. I had a gift for music and everyone here encouraged me,'' he explained.
I suspect that I'm not alone in believing that, somewhere, he is still using that gift as he always did - for the pleasure of those he loved and for the glory of God. by CNB