THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602240104
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Jpurnal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Decades ago, little Bertha Caffee looked forward more than anything to Sunday and holiday visits with her grandparents in Pungo.
She would travel by horse and cart with her parents, brothers and sisters from their home at Davis Landing near Lago Mar. They would go down Princess Anne Road to her grandparents' home on Indian River Road, which was next door to where the Pungo Fish House is now. The children, bundled in a blanket, would sit on a quilt in the back of the cart and her parents sat up front.
``We'd have the best times out there,'' Caffee said. ``I can still picture it now.''
Her grandmother would always put out a delicious spread of good old Princess Anne County foods - fried chicken and fish, sweet potato biscuits, corn bread and home-grown vegetables. ``People just don't cook that way now,'' Caffee said.
The family would feast around a big table set out under a huge tree in her grandparents' back yard. Then her grandfather, Wesley Caffee, would lead the children in games and reward the winners with 5-cent pieces. Sated with good food and tired from all the fun, everyone would sit around under the shady trees and listen to her grandfather tell stories about the Caffee family.
``Oh, boy,'' Caffee recalled. ``There were stories like you've never heard.''
The most intriguing story was the one about Hannah Nimmo, who was an African, Caffee was told. Hannah was a slave before the Civil War and served as the ``boss'' of the Nimmo children on the Nimmo Plantation where the Three Oaks neighborhood is now.
Caffee soaked up the information about how Jacob Caffee, following the death of his first wife, Lovely, married Hannah, a free woman after the Civil War.
She learned that Jacob and Hannah were her great-great-grandparents.
Those family conversations under the trees inspired little Bertha, for one. As a youngster, Caffee first visited Hannah's grave in Mount Zion AME Church across from where the Nimmo Plantation would have been. Later she visited the slave balcony at Nimmo United Methodist Church where Hannah would have worshiped.
Over the years Caffee also learned all she could about the Cason family history on her mother's side. Little Bertha Hyacinth Caffee was born at Davis Landing where the Casons all lived. She was given her middle name by her grandmother because she was such a pretty little flower though no one has ever called her that.
Her great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Cason, was the first black mail carrier in Princess Anne. ``That was back when everybody had to stand out by the road to meet the mailman,'' Caffee said.
The Cason family farmed, raising all sorts of vegetables and fruits, carrying them to market in Norfolk. Her father, John Wesley Caffee, and her grandfather ran a restaurant in Pungo. She can't remember the name of it now, but she does remember that people came from all over for the restaurant's popular Saturday night special of fish and sweet potato pie.
Caffee's first school (and she wishes she could remember the name of that too) was across Princess Anne Road from Nimmo Church). It was a one-room schoolhouse and it still stands today, but has been converted to a home, she said.
``I was so little that my mother would take me out to the road,'' she remembered, ``and an older girl would take me by the hand and we would walk to school.''
Later she went to a new school that was built right next to Nimmo Church, Caffee recalled. She graduated from Princess Anne County Training School.
``We used to ride the bus,'' Caffee said. ``And the bus didn't have heat in it, but it had a stove with a chimney going out of the top of the bus and smoke would be coming out of the bus as it went down the road!''
Retired as a teacher from Rosemont Elementary School, Caffee, now 77, lives in the home her father built in 1944 on Princess Anne Road. She's surrounded by family photos, mementos and information. She was responsible for the start of Caffee Family Day, a day-long picnic which is held every year and attended by 500 or so family members.
Now Caffee hopes that other little Caffees are sitting under the trees on those days and soaking up the family history, like she did, so they will keep the memories alive.
P.S. Ospreys are arriving early this year, it seems. Larry Pedersen, whose condo window gives him a bird's-eye view of the osprey nest in Lynnhaven Inlet, south of the bridge, said one of the birds already has arrived and has begun to rebuild its nest. Reese Lukei also saw an osprey at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge last week. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on Infoline, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Mary Reid Barrow
Bertha Caffee and her nephew Thomas Caffee look over family
memorabilia. Among the old photos is a picture of Hanna Nimmo
Caffee, Bertha's great-great-grandmother, left, who was the subject
of family lore when Bertha was young.
by CNB