Verna Marie Greene, Before the Big City: Growing Up in Virginia Beach During the Princess Anne Merger, Hist 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Caroline Daugherty, March 17, 2024
Biography
This interview is of Verna Marie Greene, conducted by her first cousin’s granddaughter. Verna Marie was born in Virginia Beach in 1952. She spent her childhood in Virginia Beach, and she was in 5th grade when Princess Anne County merged to become a part of the city of Virginia Beach. She attended Virginia Beach High School until it closed in 1965, then was a part of First Colonial High School until she graduated. Verna Marie moved away to attend college and lived in northern Virginia working as an elementary school teacher. She and her husband returned to Virginia Beach in 2017 to retire.
Research
The Princess Anne-Virginia Beach Merger was a difficult topic to research. Indeed most parts of Verna Marie’s story, the places, the people, even the schools, are local history, and therefore have little to no research done on it. I was unable to find any peer-reviewed sites or research for my topic, the hours scouring databases and the internet alike can testify to that. However there are some parts of Virginia Beach’s history I am able to share. Charles “Charlie” Grymes, an adjunct professor of George Mason’s Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, created a website called VirginiaPlaces.org. According to this website, the town of Virginia Beach was founded 1906 inside Princess Anne County. In 1952 it became an independent city, separate from the county. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Princess Anne County was losing land due to the City of Norfolk annexing it, in order to halt the land loss the county merged with the city of Virginia Beach. Princess Anne County ceased to exist Jan 1, 1963. The Princess Anne County/Virginia Beach Historical Society, founded in 1961 as the Princess Anne County Historical Society, holds an incomplete timeline of much of the history of Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach High School was built in 1952. According to the Virginia Beach City Public Schools website VB High closed just over a decade later in 1965 and the population was split between the new First Colonial High School and Frank W Cox High School.
Bibliography
Grimes, Charles A. “Princess Anne County.” Virginia Places, 1998, www.virginiaplaces.org/vacount/pranne.html. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.
Historical overview of VBCPS. Virginia Beach City Public Schools. (n.d.). https://www.vbschools.com/about/data/historical-overview-of-vbcps. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.
“Timeline.” PACVBHS, Princess Anne County/Virginia Beach Historical Society, www.virginiabeachhistory.org/timeline. Accessed 16 April. 2024.
Transcript
Caroline 00:00 Can you introduce yourself? What’s your name?
Verna Marie 00:05 Sure, I’m Verna Marie Greene
Caroline 00:09 Hi Verna Marie.
Verna Marie 00:10 I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Caroline is my great, is my first cousin twice removed. And I was born in Virginia Beach. And I’m now going to die in Virginia. [laughs]
C 00:32 Okay. Yeah. Okay, can you describe what Virginia Beach was like when you were little?
VM 00:37 Oh, it was awesome. Yes, we lived on, when I was 2, we moved to 9th Street. So I don’t remember anything before then. But when we lived on 9th Street from 2 until 6. I remember just playing outside, having a wonderful time. We moved to this house on Holly Road when I was 6. And that continued. I remember, in the summer we belong to the Cavalier Beach Club. And we would hit the beach every single day at 8 o’clock in the morning. And we would stay until noon. And then we would go home for lunch and a nap and we would return back to the beach club at 3 until 5. And then, dad would come home from work. And we’d have dinner and play outside until it got dark. And start all over again and then on Saturdays and Sundays, Dad wasn’t at work, so we’d spend the whole day there and actually got to eat lunch there. And then on Sundays, we’d take a change of clothes and at 4 o’clock every Sunday afternoon we’d have a tea dance at the beach club and we would be, children would be dancing with people’s 60 years older than they. I mean it was just a big old family fun, enjoyable relaxing time. Then, let’s see, dad had a job he was commissioner of revenue and he worked from 9 to 5, 5 days a week, and we only had one car. So… Dad would usually take the car to work. Unless it was the summertime when mom needed the car to go to the beach club. Dad would take the car to work and he would come home for lunch. And then he’d go back to work and then he’d come home for dinner. Most of our time getting from one place to another when I was really little was either by walking or riding a bike. I don’t think we got our second car until I was probably… about 10 years old, maybe. And it was just, it was fun. You knew everybody. You’d go into a store and everybody knew who you were and you knew who they were. And it was just a wonderful place to grow up.
VM 03:37 Let’s see, I wrote all these notes but I haven’t even referred to any of them yet. So Virginia Beach was… Let’s see, that’s when I was up until I was 6. And then when we moved to Holly Road, we still went to the beach club in the summer. And my world opened up a little bit because now I could ride my bikes all, my bike all over Virginia Beach starting at about 7 or 8 probably. And I remember. Slamming the door after breakfast and telling mama would be home at lunch. Coming home for lunch, slamming the door and going back out and playing. And I would come on for dinner. Slam the door and go back out until it got dark and then come in. Take a bath and go to bed. That was in the summertime.
VM 04:32 I went to a private school in first grade to learn phonics, because Virginia Beach School System did not teach phonics at the time, so a lot of families sent their children to Miss Barclay school on Sixteenth Street who happened to be my cousin and my godmother. And I remember she would always tell me that I talked too much. I remember one time. She, she threatened me with taking a bath if I continued talking. And I, I continued talking. Not that I thought I was talking too much, but according to her I was. And she made me go into the bathroom and I remember it was, I loved the bathroom. It was a big, huge old bathroom, with a big old raised tub, cast iron tub with the feet on it. And it was all done in black and white and there were big old windows in there and I can remember going in and taking a bath and just thoroughly enjoying it. And relaxing and she got so upset with me. Because she had this form of punishment, but. But I didn’t take it as that. But I loved her dearly and I learned a lot. And then as I got older, she allowed me to go back to, her school and, and, help teach first-graders when I was a little bit older. And that was down on Sixteenth Street. And I went to Cooke School [now Cooke Elementary], which was the only school in Virginia Beach then, Virginia Beach when I was growing up. It’s only 2 square miles. And it started at Rudee inlet. And went to 49th Street. And. So 50th street was not part of Virginia Beach, Bay Colony was not part of Virginia Beach, Birdneck Point was not part of Virginia Beach. So it was really a small little area. And. It was just really, really quaint. And then, so where you live and Dollar Tree that was Princess Anne County, so they didn’t go to my elementary school. They went to Linkhorn Park [Elementary]. And cause that was a county school.
VM 07:13 And I would go to, I remember going. Our church, Galilee, used to be down on 18th street. No, 16th Street, on the beach. And I can remember as a child… Remember what… When they said, when they were ending a prayer. And I remember I was almost asleep. And I jumped up and I said, where’s the Holy Ghost? And then I’ll also remember when mom and dad came back from communion and I mean I yelled it I didn’t just ask a question I yelled at the whole congregation heard. And I also remember saying to my Mother, ‘hey, Mom, how did you like the whiskey?’ After she came back from communion. But we were all in congregation and it wasn’t very large. It was, it was a small church. But there were fond memories. And then every day, in the summertime after church, people would go out and walk the boardwalk. And just tell everybody hello. And I remember, especially on Easter, Easter Sunday for many, many years until I was a teenager. Everybody would and their families would would go down to the boardwalk. And basically just stroll the boardwalk in our finest Easter attire telling everybody hello and stopping and talking and that was probably, you know, a couple of hours worth of. Of just relaxing and meeting family and friends on the boardwalk after Easter Sunday service. And that meant a lot. And that people got older. I know when this thing’s changed. That stopped happening and that was a shame because it was really really fun and a wonderful memory.
VM 09:17 Let’s see. We also used to, in the summertime. Well, Virginia Beach was dead, unless it was the summer time. I mean it was just a lazy little town and then summertime, we had a lot of people from More than North, we had a lot of people from I remember we had a lot of New Yorkers came to Virginia Beach to spend a few days on vacation. And our, you know, our hotels were all run by families and friends of ours. I can remember taking strolls down the boardwalk after dinner. And Gene and I would, my sister, would cut Gardenas off of our Gardenia bush. And we take them down on the boardwalk and we’d sell them to all of these New York men, who were taking their dates. Cause they have never smelled a Gardenia before because this is about as far north as Gardenius then would grow. And we would send them, sell them for 10 cents or 25 cents a flower. So that’s how Gene and I would make money for penny bubble gum. Let’s see. Are you anything specific? I’m not. That you wanna hear that I’m not covering or should I just keep on going?
C 10:43 Oh, well, I do have one question. What was, so it sounds like you experienced a lot of like Virginia Beach and I know you were talking about how you only had one car for a while. What was your experience like interacting with people outside of like Virginia Beach?
VM 11:01 Okay, well, so as as a young child, there was none. Except once our new church was built, which is now the one on 40th Street, Pacific [Avenue]. Then the congregation grew and it pulled people from the north end of Virginia Beach. Which then was not Virginia Beach. That was the county and also Bay Colony. So I was able to meet new people that still, you know, lived within… You know, a half a mile of me, but they weren’t part of the city that I grew up in. So I was able to interact with them and I also when I went to Virginia Beach High School. That included students from Cooke School and Linkhorn Park. So, Linkhorn Park was the closest county school. Cooke being the city school. And so we all kind of merged in high school and high school Virginia Beach High School then was eighth grade through twelfth grade. Elementary school was one through 7. We didn’t have any middle schools then. So really, and at, and at the beach club. The beach club, there were some friends that we’re from the north end of Virginia Beach that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. But really that was the only interaction I ever had with people outside of the city of Virginia Beach. Then in, when we merged to when they built after the merger. Well, we haven’t gotten to that part yet.
VM 13:08 So as a Young, you know, someone. In my teens. You know, I would, I would ride my bicycle all over every place or or walk the beach, meet friends and go swimming. We were allowed to swim as long as there were 2 people. We were never allowed to swim by ourselves. There was a Princess Anne country club across the street for me, but none of my friends went to the Princess Anne we always call that the Peephole [?]. We all just enjoyed the ocean and never enjoyed the pool. And. Let’s see. Dad, oh, I remember. Dad and a couple of other men started the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad, which is still in existence today and is actually the largest volunteer rescue squad in the country. And every Tuesday, from 6 in the morning until 6 in the evening Dad had the ambulance, so mother would drive him down and he would pick up an ambulance and bring it home, and Tuesday was the day now that mother had a car that she could use. To run any errands that she had. And Dad would take us to school on Tuesdays and pick us up from school on Tuesdays because there was no no bus system then. We walk to school. But when the high school, when we started high school, Virginia Beach High School, then we could run over to Pacific Avenue. And catch a Trailways bus. It cost a quarter to catch the bus to take us to school. And it was Mr. Drinkwar [?]. He was the bus driver for the… anyone along Atlantic or Pacific [Avenues], between the North End and the high school. And so it was a bus that we had all of our own. It cost a quarter for a one way trip. And I don’t think we got public buses until, no, it must have been 9th grade. 9th grade, we must have gotten a public bus for Virginia Beach High School. And. Let’s see. We knew where. [unintelligible] There are a lot of stuff that I wrote down here that I’m not talking, and we’ve already jumped to question number two Caroline. Oh, I remember some stuff. Can I backtrack a little bit?
C 16:21 Sure.
VM 16:23 Okay, so. Let’s see. So, it was interesting. We had one family vacation a year growing up. And that was to Charlottesville. And I never knew it, but it turned out to be that’s when daddy had a convention for the Commissioner of Revenue. And Dad was Commissioner of Revenue for the little city of Virginia Beach. And it was for a week so we took the family in August and that’s when we stayed at a hotel and went swimming at a pool, but we thought it was absolutely awesome. And then he would take his 2 weeks vacation. He would take it, like the 20th of Christmas, 20th of December. The week before Christmas and he would have his vacation through New Year’s. And so we didn’t travel, like people do now, you know, as much family oriented stuff, getting together with families. I do remember hearing stories as a child, when the Korean War broke out, since we were… had the Oceana Naval Base here, they used to have lights out once it got dark you weren’t allowed to have your lights on. And if you did turn lights on, then you had to have a black curtain up so that in case anybody was off the coast, they wouldn’t know where Oceana naval base was [unintelligible]
C 18:05 Was Oceana a part of Virginia Beach?
VM 18:09 No, it was no, it was in the county. No, that Oceana was was was County, it was in Princess Anne County then. And I remember, growing up, I, we would hear planes breaking sound barriers. Oh, often times, a couple of times a day. And that was really interesting. And we had planes going over, you know, jets going over, but they weren’t allowed like they are now and there weren’t as many as we have now. And I, I don’t know if they had the same pathway to the air base, I would assume they did, as they do now. I know when we talked to some jet pilots a few years ago. A good friend of ours. Was killed and he was… had just graduated from Annapolis and was going into the Air Force, so he was in flight school. And we went to his funeral and the pilots said that they knew exactly… and this was in northern Virginia. And the pilot said they knew exactly where we lived because they lined their their their jets up to come into Oceana. By way of the Cavalier Hotel and the golf course, which is right behind us. So they knew exactly where we were, where we lived.
VM 19:44 And let’s see. You know, I just. I just had a great time when when I was growing up, Caroline, what you know now on the other side of Rudy inlet, you know, where Crowatan is. That was nothing but sand dunes. It was sand dunes pretty much all the way to North Carolina. And that’s where we would go fly kites. We would have cookouts on the beach. Down there. We would on Easter Monday. The kites, you know, Catherine and Randolph, our cousins who lived in Birdneck. And that’s, we would go to Sandbridge, and we would have an Easter egg hunt in the dunes. And our Easter egg hunt though was deviled eggs wrapped in wax paper. And, cause they didn’t have the plastic eggs and stuff that you can use now. So they were actually deviled eggs. What we use for our egg hunt. And, so we we played down there all the time. That’s where we learned to drive a car, was down in that area because nobody was ever down there. They were just, you know, little rocky roads and sand dunes. I got my driver’s license when I was 15. The day I turned 15, I was able to get my driver’s license. And Dad gave me the car that day. And, I remember we were. Junior high and I think I’ve told you the story before. I was in junior, no, I was in high school. We didn’t have a junior high. That was at Virginia Beach High School. And Mr. Smith, our PE teacher. That was the day we had those traffic films. And he told everybody to watch out because I just got my license that morning and I had the car.
VM 21:43 But it, it was such a small, everybody knew everybody. It was such a small community. It was just loads of fun. So we. Growing up too, we used to ride down Atlantic Avenue in the summertime. And sometimes we could ride down Atlantic Avenue in 30 min. Other times it might take 2 h because of something that would happen. Dad was a member of the Civil Defense League. And so, and. And being the rescue squad and being the Commissioner of Revenue and the Clerk of Court. He was always involved with our little teeny community. And we would just ride down Atlantic Avenue, see what was going on and ride back we did that every night in the summer. Unless we were walking the boardwalk, we would stop at Hyde’s ice cream and pick up an ice cream cone. And that time the single scoop was a nickel, a double was 10 cents, and the triple was 15 cents. We never got anything more than a single it was too expensive. And that was a treat to go to… to Hyde’s and get an ice cream cone. But, let’s see. What else do I have written down here? Okay, so. I guess that’s, I don’t know how much you wanna know about. So basically what you’re interested in though is the merger and how that affected us. Not really. Of childhood and experiences or… Help me is that more what your project is on?
C 23:28 Well, it’s more just, social change, so it’s how did you see a change in Virginia Beach when it went from this tiny city to what it is today?
VM 23:44 Well. We woke up on January first, I think it was 1963 and we had gone from a 2 square mile city to the world’s largest resort city in the world. And it went all the way to the North Carolina line. And then out west to, to Norfolk. And it really didn’t affect me the first couple of years, it affected Dad because, since Virginia Beach was so small, and even though the city of Virginia Beach incorporated Princess Anne County, into the city. Since the population was greater in the county than it was in the city, Dad woke up that morning and he was no longer Commissioner of Revenue. He was now Deputy Commissioner of Revenue. And, over the next couple of years. Dad wound up not liking the way that the the city was being run and how politics were being run, how things were, were being run by the county. Dad was always one that, no matter what you tell the truth, everything’s above board, we don’t make deals that are not public. And then, so he decided that he was gonna run for Commissioner of Revenue. And they actually changed the locks on his office door so he could not go to work. And so as far as the government was concerned, he was no longer… no longer working. Because he couldn’t report to his office. But he did not… he did not win the election, even though he, he tried to get back into politics because he didn’t like what was happening to politics because he didn’t like what was happening to the city of Virginia Beach and he didn’t like what was happening politically to the city of Virginia Beach and he had a few attempts trying to get back in to as Commissioner of Revenue or as… as the Treasurer but he never got back into it so he wound up coming a hotel manager. And so his life changed drastically. So I guess in that way, the merger affected our whole family, but it didn’t hit me that much.
VM 26:37 It really didn’t, I don’t think the merger. Everything for me stayed the same, until they opened First Colonial High School. Cause everything had remained the same. When they opened up First Colonial High School. And that was a merger between Virginia Beach High School and Cox High School. And Cox High School at that time was, our 2 schools were the major rivals at the time. And I went from a high school of 500 people where I probably knew 80% of them. To a high school now that had 2,000 people. Where, you know, maybe I knew 15-20% of them. Made a lot of friends there, made a lot of good friends there. But. Looking back on it, the majority of the friends that I still have here in the area, are from the earlier years. Those whom I met up through Virginia Beach High School. You know, the ones from the city, the 2 square miles, the North End, Bay Colony, and Birdneck Point. I’m still real close to those people. So that I think was probably the first time that I really noticed change. And, in the effects of the merger. No, I. I. I know it affected mom and dad a great deal. You know, even financially it hit us hard because I know Dad had a couple of properties down Chatalong [?] 3 of them. And I know they made the decision to sell the properties to help bankroll his candidacy. In in one of the elections. And, I remember. I’ve come across literature while cleaning out the house here. Where Daddy had a list of people who, he was asking people to donate $1. And people were donating… he had a whole list of people that he was writing thank you notes to because they were sending in $1 or $5 or $10, but I don’t think anything is more than $10. Which really seems, you compare it to what people do today. And it’s just mind boggling. I mean, that’s how, you know, even. It was just small town. Very interesting. So, so financially that hit us really hard, but we never, you know, as children, we never realized that nothing really changed for us. Like I say, until I went to First Colonial High School. Gene was the last graduating class of Virginia Beach High School. And then once the First Colonial High School opened, then Cox High School and Virginia Beach High School became middle schools. So Billye actually wound up her elementary school… she went to Cooke School for maybe one year and then she went to Linkhorn Park. Which for me was the county school. So that did affect her because she went to a different elementary school. Then Gene and I had gone to. And let’s see, got the high school. I included that.
C 30:47 So wait, how old were you when like the merger happened? You said it was ‘63.
VM 30:51 I was 11 years old.
C 30:53 You were 11.
VM 30:55 11. Mmmhm
C 30:58 And what, what grade was that?
VM 31:03 Hmm, must’ve been. Must’ve been…The year I was in fifth grade, I guess. Because my birthday is in March so I would have been 12. So maybe it was sixth grade, cause I probably turned 12 after the merger. On my next birthday. So I guess I was in sixth grade then. So I was still at Cooke School. I went to Cooke School until 7th, through 7th grade. And then onto Virginia Beach High School in 8th grade. Oh, and then when I was 14, the summer I turned 14. When you’re 14, you could, you could go to work. You could get a license to work. And Gene worked a couple of years at the Cavalier Beach Club. I guess when she was 15 and 16 years old. And then at that time, the only other type of job girls could get basically, were waitressing. And Mom and Dad decided to… so this is after the merger. Dad, open, Mom and Dad opened a gift shop called St. Clair Gifts, which was across the street from the hotel where he was managing. It was the property was owned by the owner of the hotel. And it was vacant. So mom and dad decided that they would open a gift shop so that Gene and I would have a place to work. And maybe they could make a little bit of money. And I remember, so I started working there when I was 14. Gene started, I guess when she was 17. Dad’s sister who had retired but needed a little bit of cash also worked there. And I, Gene and I had friends, couple of our friends also worked there and we were paid 50 cents an hour. And we were ecstatic to be getting 50 cents an hour. That was a lot of money then. And, so Gene and I would open the gift shop, we close the gift shop, we would. We would help with the ordering, we learned an awful lot of of skills in the business world from the gift shop because it was kind of like we were partners with mom on the gift shop. And that was, that was loads of fun and a great place to spend your summers. And make a little bit of money to at the same time.
VM 34:20 So when When I was a child, we were talking about I guess, there was one about one question you had about the old Virginia beach, the remnants and how it’s blurred [The question was where do you see the old Virginia beach and where has it blurred into the new VB?] And. I, I think that many of the stores where I used to shop as a child and as a teenager, and most people around here shopped were on Atlantic Avenue or Laskin Road. There weren’t any malls. You know, there were stores here and there. If you couldn’t find what you wanted in Virginia Beach, basically you drove to Norfolk to do any shopping. And so all… everything that we needed in our daily lives, we could get in this little 2 square miles of the city of Virginia Beach. And, Then in the summertime when the tourists would come, the place would get mobbed, so you. You know, it was. You didn’t do a lot of shopping or anything in in the summertime, you basically, we went to the beach every day. So I know that you know and now all of those shops are tourist traps, you know, they’re, they’re the Sunsations or you know bars or or pancake houses.
VM 36:14 The hotels were on Atlantic Avenue, used to be all family-owned little hotels. And in the old city of Virginia Beach, you couldn’t build a hotel taller than 5 stories, because the beach was nowhere near as wide as it is now. And if your hotel was taller than 5 stories, then it blocked that afternoon sun so the beach then would become shaded. If it were taller than 5 stores, cause that’s why they had that limit. And then after the merger, the core of engineers came in, and they pucked [?] sand. And built the, the beach much wider. Not as wide as it is now, it’s even wider now. But they built up the sand. So that hotels could be. Cause they wanted higher hotels. So the hotels went from being small, intimate, family run hotels. To now the larger corporate hotels were coming into existence in the city of Virginia Beach. And I remember that there was a hotel in the twenties [one of the streets 20th-29th] on Atlantic Avenue in the ocean called the Tides Motel. And, the Parlets owned it. And their son Nicky [the son was not named, his actual name wasn’t recalled] and I were really good friends in elementary school. And. I remember going over… being invited to, you know, spend the night with Nicki. And I there the first floor of the hotel was the lobby, the dining room, and personal rooms. They were family rooms. So when I would go there to spend the night, I was actually given a hotel room on the first floor. So guests were, you know, hotel guests were second, third, fourth, and fifth floors. So that was really fun. And then also.
VM 38:30 Gene and Billye had summer birthdays and I had a March birthday. And early March, sometimes it was beautiful weather in Virginia Beach as you know and sometimes it was, the weather was awful. And I always wanted a beach birthday. I always thought it was so cool that Gene and Billye didn’t have to go to school on their birthdays. And they could have, you know, a summer beach party and cook out. So I remember one year I was I was thinking I was in third grade. And. Mom and Dad rented… where they got a hotel room at the Thunderbird Hotel, which was on 35th Street. And, Oceanfront then. And I remember the whole ceiling was netted with balloons up and in the ceiling and all my friends were invited to this hotel room. And we have a great time at a birthday party and then I remember that they let all the balloons down the middle of the birthday party and it was just fun, but I couldn’t have done that today with all of the big hotels. That was just because it was a small, quaint, family owned, you know, hotel. So a lot of memories that, that many of us had from those old days. Old days, woo. So let’s see. Hmm.
VM 40:00 I think too, when you used to say you were from Virginia Beach. Well. People, if you lived in Bay Colony or Birdneck or the North End, you still said you were from Virginia Beach, because you are so closely associated with the city. But you know, Hilltop area that was nothing but farmland. You know, and like I say on the other side of the inlet, was nothing but sand dunes. And then you keep on going further and it’s farmland. So there was nothing in Princess Anne County but farms. You know, there was no, there was a little teeny downtown with maybe might’ve had you know, a courthouse and a couple of churches. And but that was about it for Princess Anne County. So, you knew everybody in Virginia Beach. Now people say they’re from Virginia Beach and they’ll tell me what their subdivision is and I have no clue where it is. I’ve never heard of it before. There’s so many people now in the city of Virginia Beach. It is just. Blown up since the merger. The farms are. Are now being turned into subdivisions. I can remember the first subdivision that was built out there. Was called Red Mill Farms. Are you aware of? Red Mill, the area.
C 41:38 Yeah, I got a friend who lives over there.
VM 41:41 Okay, that was the very first subdivision. Out in, in the county area. And I really, it was took over Red Mill Farms. And I can remember how upset people were in the city. And in the county, I would imagine. Because we were now, the city was now spreading out into all of this farmland And it’s just, you know, it’s unrecognizable now. The city of Virginia Beach is still recognizable. We called it the Borough then. That’s still recognizable. Even though it’s changing, but I don’t recognize anything passed, passed Hilltop basically, unless it’s one of the malls that are now closed, you know. JF [?], I think was the first one. And now that’s closed. And then there was Pembroke and then Lynnhaven [Pembroke is closed, but Lynnhaven Mall is still open]. And… just a lot of, a lot of businesses, expansion, a lot of family, homes expansion. We still have Cooke school and Linkhorn Park School, but even though Linkhorn Park has changed in location, but those two elementary schools are still there and it was interesting. So when I was growing up in Virginia Beach, we had one high school and one elementary school. Close by to us was the county and that was Linkhorn Park Elementary School. And those people went to either Princess Anne or Cox High School. Now I check and… so now… whereas I had one high school and one elementary school. We now have 54 elementary schools in Virginia Beach. We now have 15 high schools. No, excuse me, 15 middle schools, 11 high schools, 1 charter school, and 4 secondary specialty centers. So did you go to a secondary specialty center? Is that what they call it?
C 44:24 Hmm. I’m not sure, maybe. Cause I did go to the Advanced Technology Center. Which was sort of like a high school thing. But it was also sort of like the community college thing.
VM 44:38 Yeah. So I’m wondering if the secondary specialty center, which we now have 4 of, which I just found out this morning. I was wondering if that was like you’re school, if your school would have been considered a secondary specialty center.
C 44:55 Yeah, I don’t know about that. That’s… even I didn’t know that was. I didn’t know we had that. [both laugh]
VM 45:05 Okay. So, you know, and also. The new and the old. You know the the boardwalk. I always remember this concrete boardwalk. It’s fancier now than it was. It looks much nicer now than it did. But the boardwalk is the same. But the hotels have changed. So. You know, and the businesses and the restaurants. So what’s a like, I guess, is still the boardwalk area and all the hotels opening up to the beach, whereas when I was growing up it was more old hotels and porches were opening up on the beach. But you didn’t have a lot of restaurants and all on the beach. You had those on Atlantic Avenue, but you didn’t walk to a restaurant from the boardwalk like you can now. How did the culture of Virginia Beach change during and after the merger? I think we’ve pretty much covered that in the questions prior to. Or in my just rambling on. But I am, you know. It’s still. To me, it’s still I guess Virginia Beach and the county. I’m still in that mindset. And I guess maybe since I moved away in my early twenties. And just came back a few years ago. Except when I would come back and visit mom and dad. I guess. That I still think of. Oh Virginia Beach, the North End, Birdneck, Hilltop, Bay Colony. Princess Anne Manor, as Virginia Beach proper. And the rest is just kinda like an addition that I really don’t know that much about to be honest with you. So. I would think that people that maybe grew up in the county, they might have seen more changes than I have. Because the growth has been so much more out in the county. Whereas the city of Virginia Beach, I don’t think the growth has been as much, it has just been a change, you know, like in the hotels and the restaurants, but it’s very similar to the way it was when I grew up. You know, a lot of the beginning to tear down some of the older homes now, which I find sad, but you know that’s to be expected. And putting up new ones, but there’s still a lot of landmarks that I see every day in Virginia Beach. I still refer to you know, even on my street. If I’m talking to my sister in Columbia [SC] who doesn’t live here anymore, when I refer to houses on West Holly or on Holly, or anywhere. It’s a throwback to the names of the people or the businesses that were there when I was growing up. Does that make sense?
CD 48:55 Mmhmm. Are there like a lot of people you grew up with or they’re like a lot of people left in the area?
VM 49:02 Yeah, they’re a lot of them left, of course the majority of them moved away and just like, you know, we did, but a lot of them are coming back now. But we still have loads of friends that we get together with occasionally that we went to elementary school, high school with. So there’s, you know, still quite a few, but nowhere… whereas when I was younger, I could drive down the street and probably tell you who lived in which house. Going up and down the street. Now there They’re just a few that I know that’s where they live. But, the ones that grew up here. They have moved back into this area, not into the Princess Anne County part. Well, I take that back, you know, a couple of them were out like behind, Virginia Beach General [Hospital] now. Oh, that’s something else that interesting when I was growing up. I was… my doctor was Dr. Taylor and that’s where when we go to Dr. Taylor’s that was his residence and actually was his practice until. We wound up. He was so tired of having to go into Norfolk for a hospital. That he and Dr. Dormeyer [?], and I don’t know who else built the hospital, Virginia Beach Hospital on 25th Street, which is now an apartment complex. And so I was born there, it was a white cinder block hospital on 25th Street, and he built it so he didn’t have to go into Norfolk for emergencies, surgeries, what’s that type thing. And you know when you go to Doc Taylor’s [restaurant in his former residence], a lot of those doctor’s names, not all of them, but probably a third of them, where the menu has so and so’s heart attack or whatever. It’s from the doctors and the nurses who used to work at that old Virginia Beach Hospital, before they moved it out to Timbuktu on First Colonial Rd. Let’s see. I don’t know. So what other questions do you have?
C 51:53 What do you miss about the, old Virginia Beach? Do you miss anything about the old Virginia Beach?
VM 52:01 Yeah, I remember. I’m miss the personal service that we used to have, like if I went into a store, even without my parents or anything. And I saw something or wanted something, you know, they would hold it for me until I could come home and get money. And sometimes they would just give it to me knowing that I would come back and pay them because you know, everybody knew everybody. I miss. The personal service that we used to get, like if we would go to a family-owned restaurant down here and which we did not do that, that often when I was real young. But like we would go to B and M’s Delicatessen [?] and the owners were always there. They were the ones that were cooking. And so there was always, you know, a conversation with them. It was just a small quaint little place. There was Kaufman’s on 17th Street. The same thing, whenever we would go in there, you know, there was a conversation because Mr. And Mrs. Kaufman were in the kitchen and their sons were the, the waiters and so it was…it was much, friendly might not be the word, but it was… it was much more of just a feeling of being closer to people and having more of a relationship with everyone. In the in Virginia Beach.
VM 54:00 And, you know, I remember one time. So, Dad then had when I was growing up, Dad’s office was next door to the police station. And behind the police station is the rescue squad. So, Dad had his office on one side of the police station and the rescue squad, which dad helped found and you know, it was. I had [unintelligible] every Tuesday was right behind it so I felt very comfortable with the policemen and the police station. And I remember one time, and I had my license, so I had to have been at least 15 years old. And a friend and I, mom and dad had let me have the car, and she lived up in Birdneck Point and I was supposed to be taking her home. And we realized we were being followed by a car. And so instead of taking her home, we drove to the police station. And went inside the police station, told them what was going on. And we stayed in there and chit chatted with them, you know, for about a half an hour or so. They made sure that there was nobody hanging out before we got back in the car, and I took Debbie home. You know, so it was, a much closer relationship with everybody. You couldn’t get away with anything. You do something on a Friday night, your parents know about it Saturday morning. You know, so we were on our toes a lot. We, we always made, you know, good decisions and. Because everybody knew what you were doing. You, you couldn’t get away with anything. And I liked that, just a great big family. So I think I missed that because now I can go to the store and sometimes, I never ran into anybody I know. And to me that’s a shame.
VM 56:18 Alright, let me see if anywhere, cause I still have stuff I can tell you about, but I don’t wanna. Oh, I know. It was something. Have you heard of the Ash Wednesday storm that we had?
C 56:36 No, I don’t think so.
VM 56:39 Okay, well. There it was during the Vernal Equinox in in 1962. And Everybody woke up. And the, it was like the perfect storm. And there were just huge waves that wound up taking out part of the concrete boardwalk, people’s houses on the north end, there were a couple of, what I actually remember. Where they were there was, one house on maybe 43rd, 44th street, somewhere in there. It was like an L-shaped house. And one part would say, you know, oceanfront and their house split, right there at the intersection of the 2 wings. And it went out in the ocean and this man watched his, his piano. Half of his house and piano just being taken open by the ocean. The North End was, was underwater, and cars couldn’t get through. They have the Coast Guard, which was down on 24th Street, had these ducks [aka DUKW, a vehicle made for WWII]. Do you know what a duck is? Have you ever heard of a military duck?
C 58:08 No.
VM 58:09 Well, it’s like a… the wheels on the things must have been maybe 8, 10 feet in diameter. And it was just a huge…
Phil [VM’s Husband] 58:25 It’s an amphibious vehicle Ree
VM 58:27 An amphibious vehicle Phillip said. It could go in the water or it could ride on the road. And it was, it went up and you could fit loads of people and things inside on top. And they use that duck. To ferry homeowners that were trapped in the North End to hotels and so forth. They use the duck to go down Atlantic Avenue, because buses and cars couldn’t go through there. And, they have the National Guard out to help prevent people from stealing things, because all of these, you know, homes along the Oceanfront were destroyed. And so they’re all trying to protect from looting. I remember the, the restaurants down along Atlantic Avenue. I remember seeing lines and lines of National Guard, waiting to go in and get breakfast. I remember taking cups of coffee and donuts down to the National Guard. And they were here for a few weeks. And if you go down on 36th, between Atlantic and Pacific. Oh, there are these billboards that actually show pictures from the Ash Wednesday storm. And Dad had gone out with his movie camera, Dad was really big at taking movies. And he went out with this movie camera, and he took all of these pictures and then movies and then came home and realized he didn’t have any film in the camera.
C 1:00:17 Oh.
VM 1:00:19 So, but if you looked up Ash Wednesday Storm, Virginia Beach, Virginia, it would be amazing some of the scenes that you would see. So. But that was. You know that was, little town taking care of everybody. Oh, and, I remember mom and dad got so upset because It didn’t hit… schools were not closed. Because it didn’t hit the… Cooke school was fine, and Linkhorn Park was fine. And mom and dad got so upset because It hit us. I mean, we, were under a lot of water and stuff, but Dad was going out to help, because he was part of the civil defense. And so he was going out. And they were going to count me absent from school that day, and I remember dad going down and talking to the principal. And told her what happened and what because they didn’t have buses or anything to get us to school and the car was being used. And, so I wound the not having to, they wound up not counting the absent that day. But. Okay. So. That’s all. That’s just the story of Virginia Beach. I’m filled with lots of stories because I’m old and I and I remember things and it’s fun remembering things and telling people what it was like.
C 1:01:50 It’s fun hearing about it.
VM 1:01:55 I think it’s fun too. And I think there’s, you know, we were also naive then, so much more so than y’all are now. You know, and just happy and carefree and having fun and we didn’t worry about anything. I know just it was, just it was a wonderful time and Virginia Beach was a wonderful place to grow up. It really was and gonna be a wonderful and wonderful place to retire and pass on. So. Anyway, I’m glad we’re back here.
C 1:02:35 I am too.
VM 1:02:36 I’m glad and I’m glad you all have moved down here.
C 1:02:41 Well, thank you very much for this Verna Marie
VM 1:02:45 You’re welcome.
C 1:02:47 I think this includes the interview.
VM 1:02:49 Oh, okay. All right. Well, let me know. And if you need anything else, and I have had fun. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to reminisce.
