
DATE: Sunday, August 10, 1997               TAG: 9708080283

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 15   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Cover Story 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

DAUGHTER OF POORHOUSE DIRECTOR STILL HOLDS AN OPEN HEART

The neat little two-room cottages are gone. Gone, too, the towering oak trees, torn down years ago to make room for the Chesapeake City Hall. The cotton fields have given way to school buildings. The woods that once sheltered small wooden crosses have been uprooted, the coffins buried below unearthed and moved elsewhere.

Little remains of the old Norfolk County Poorhouse, where Mary Billups Curling Fryer lived for three years while her father, Lee Billups, served as superintendent.

But something about the land just off Cedar Road - then known as Poorhouse Road - has always drawn her to it. After leaving the poorhouse site in 1930 as a teen-ager, Fryer returned in 1962 to work the first shift at the city's new jail. She served as a matron - later upgraded to the more official title of deputy - until 1975.

Her family's tradition of service to others left an indelible imprint on her life.

Fryer's father was raised by a relative after he lost his parents at age 6. He knew what it was like to be in need, Fryer said. Her father tried to return the kindness he had received from others in his professional life, as superintendent of the poorhouse.

Fryer has raised 36 foster children in addition to her own son and two daughters. She has served as mother figure to many others.

``I never intended to have so many,'' said Fryer, now 80. ``Some still keep in touch.''

The first baby she raised came to her when the child was only five weeks old. She cared for the baby for a year. ``We weren't supposed to love these children,'' Fryer said. ``But of course you can't help it.''

Fryer even once took in a grown woman for the night.

A woman who had come to the jail to visit her husband had no place to stay in Chesapeake, Fryer said. Back then, as now, there are no hotels or motels near the jail, after all, Fryer said.

Fryer's home remains open to those who need her.

Her own children are now grown. But Fryer still shares her house with one of the boys she took in years ago, who is now disabled by a car accident.

``I've had a full life,'' she said. MEMO: Main story on page 14. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN

Mary Billups Curling Fryer lived on the old Norfolk County Poorhouse

for three years while her father, Lee Billups, served as

superintendent. Her family's tradition of service to others left an

indelible imprint on her life. She went on to raise 36 foster

children in addition to her own son and two daughters.