URBANNA — While walking down Virginia Street the other day it occurred to me that many changes had come about in the 40 years since we had moved here from Newport News. I hardly recognized the town I first knew.
As I observed the present day Urbanna, I recalled the way it had been when we first bought a cottage on the river on Kent Street and slowly made the move from the city. I felt the passing time as if it were a sudden wind sprung up off the Rappahannock River blowing through my hair — 40 years, over half of my life, spent in this beloved town, which was to replace my hometown in Ohio, that I now call home.
I was left with two very strong realizations. Life was made up of a combination of constant change and the rapid passing of time. Yet I still saw all the citizens of yesteryear, those who once lived in Urbanna and carried out their businesses and lives within this same tiny plot of land, their coming and going across the stage as if actors playing many parts, making entrances and all too quick exits — an unending play moving across time as if a film played on high speed, and as if there were no end.
I thought of Thornton Wilder’s play, “Our Town,” and remembered reading the parts in high school in 1958 in American Literature class. I imagined the same characters in my town, as we are all the same, no matter what town, age or circumstances we were born and raised in, we could all play each other’s parts. Perhaps the physical world around us changes, but human behavior stays the same — we are all in constant battle to control rage, lust, greed, envy, pride, gluttony, sloth and all the other traits of humankind let loose since Pandora’s Box, the Garden of Eden, or whatever other myth that has come down throughout the ages that tries to explain human failings — that the Bible, Chaucer, Shakespeare and all the great writers have written about throughout the ages in hopes of alerting man that uncontrolled behavior can destroy us.
Urbanna Creek had changed as much as the town with numerous homes and dock developments on either side of the busy waterway. Long gone was the old Southern States grainery at the foot of Virginia Street and fishing, crab and oyster boats that once moored at rustic piers with boards that swayed when one walked on them, replaced now by sleek new docks and beautiful sail and motor yachts.
I remembered a covered marina that was destroyed by fire that was one of the worst tragedies in Urbanna, which is now newly rebuilt and the home of Urbanna Boatyard and Marina, nicknamed “Urbby,” a new marina.
We kept our sailboat then at old Montague’s dock now replaced by the new Montague’s dock and would often boat over to swim off the sandy spit of land at the mouth of Urbanna Creek. It was a wild beach then and we would walk down past Rosegill marveling at the erosion along the cliff shoreline.
There was an airfield at Rosegill then, where Bob Montague and Roy Bowman could land their airplanes. My husband, Chip, said when he opened his law office in town some of his Richmond clients would fly into town and he would pick them up at Rosegill field. Rosegill is mostly surrounded in corn fields today still waiting on the economy that will allow more housing development in the county.
When we moved to a new dock across the creek at Urbanna Harbour Yacht Club, I kept a canoe and would often paddle up and down the creek, furious at the occasional motorboats that did not obey the wake laws and would come too close and too fast by my fragile canoe. I never was capsized, but I came very close to such a fate.
“Windows” was the restaurant on the property that is now the Urbanna Town Marina. It was a circular structure with great views of Urbanna Creek. Jimmy Sneed, a brilliant young chef, made his start in our town before going on to his Richmond restaurant, the “Frog and the Red Neck.” He specialized in French dishes and his menu attracted many diners from all over the peninsula.
Jimmy hired my son, Wake, as a waiter one summer just before he went off to college. Jimmy lived in one of those condos on Cross Street with a flat roof and his dog would jump out the second story window and wait on the roof for his master to come home from work.
Urbanna Creek Yacht Club was beginning in those years and they met in the upstairs room of a building in a marina that was eventually owned by the Doziers, a Deltaville family. There was a restaurant on the water called the “Boathouse,” which served wonderful food. Payne’s crab house was another good place to get fresh crab for lunch, but is now gone.
In those years Urbanna waterfront was open and I could walk or bike from “Windows” all the way on the waterfront to the bridge. Jan Dunlevy cut my hair at Shear Delight Salon next to the bridge and Mike’s Pizza restaurant was next door.
Our little cottage on Kent Street was built in the 1940s and few improvements had been made over the years. I remember the screen porch had a wooden floor that slanted toward the river.
The Rev. Jerry Bunting, vicar at Christ Church, came to welcome us to Christ Church in 1984. At the time I was reading theology books written by Don Cupitt, Divinity head at Oxford University. I asked Jerry what he thought of his books. (Cupitt stated in his book “Turning Away from God” that if one wanted to be truly religious, that this was required.)
“I don’t know much about theology,” he said with a smile, but I can tell you where the best fishing holes in the Rappahannock River are and where to hunt for turkey come Thanksgiving.
(To be continued.)
