THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606050124
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 80 lines
THE PARK VIEW PHARMACY and Gibbs' Barber Shop are gone, along with the old wooden bridge on Spratley Street and the gas lines that ran under it.
Only memories and old photographs remain.
But there were plenty of those to go around last weekend when more than 600 former residents of Park View and West Park View jumped at the chance to go home again.
``People have come from all over,'' said reunion chairman Sue Smith Allen, who now lives in Chesapeake. ``Some came from Florida, and one person came from Alaska.''
Most of them proved there wasn't much they had forgotten about their old neighborhood.
Some even remembered the phone number of the old Park View Pharmacy, which wasn't that hard since it was just two digits long.
Delores ``Sis'' Butler Spence's family called Park View home for at least three generations.
``We're the family Butler Street was named after,'' she said. ``I don't know which relative it was. It goes way back, to our great-grandparents.''
The first deed in which Park View was mentioned dates to 1888, according to a copy of an 1892 history of the area that was displayed in a room of the Beazley Senior Center, headquarters for the reunion.
But the families represented at the reunion, for the most part, represented the decades from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Almost 400 people boarded the Spirit of Norfolk for a Friday night buffet dinner and show. More than 600 showed up Saturday, when a tent had been set up next to the Beazley Center on Owen Street.
``The center opened in 1951 and operated as a community center for 25 years,'' Spence said. ``This was a kids' center, funded by the Beazley Foundation. When people began to move out, they turned it into a senior center.''
While Allen spent a good portion of the weekend behind the scenes in the kitchen, the highlight for her was seeing the throng of people who showed up Saturday.
There were shouts of recognition among old neighbors, followed by hugs and handshakes. Sunny skies and warm temperatures encouraged walking about and mingling.
After a breakfast at the center, people boarded trolleys for a look at their old stomping grounds.
``I took the trolley tour for the first time this year,'' Allen said. ``You could hear people on the trolley saying so and so lived here or we took this road to walk downtown to the movies and different things like that.''
Lunch under the tent was accompanied by the music of Fay Howell and Company, a country band. The day ended with an afternoon ice cream social.
Many did not have to travel far to get to the weekend event.
``I've only lived in my house since I was 3 months old,'' said Virginia Murden of West Park View, another of the reunion's organizers. ``I've never moved.''
Susie Bozeman, the oldest person to attend, had moved to Churchland in 1970 but had lived ``a lifetime'' in Park View. Her earliest memories were going to school in the neighborhood, in the years before 1910.
The other two among the oldest present were Earlie Johnson, 93, and Agnes Mahoney, 90.
The first reunion for former residents of Park View and West Park View was held in 1986, according to Allen.
``The Newtown people really started it,'' she said of the former neighborhood near the Naval Shipyard. ``They had one, and I was working in the Navy Yard, and I thought when I retire I'm going to try and organize a neighborhood reunion.''
Allen retired in 1985, and a year later she and several old neighbors pulled off their first reunion. They held a second one in 1991.
``This is the third one, but this is going to be the last one,'' Allen said. ``We're all getting so old.''
Spence smiled as she commented on Allen's plans not to schedule another reunion.
``She's going to get a lot of letters,'' she said, ``saying, `Please do it again.' '' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Ruth and Charles Brown tour the area where he grew up during the
Park View Reunion. Former residents came from as far away as Alaska
to visit their old neighborhood. by CNB