Written by Mary L. Flynn (known to us as May) in 2011 who now lives in Tampa, FL.
I was born in Sibley Hospital, Washington, D.C. on June 13, 1923. My parents were Lawrence Leroy Hurley and Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley. I had one sister, Grace Mildred, six years older and one brother, Wallis Montgomery, four years older. They were living in Hyattsville, Maryland at the time. Our family also included my mother’s father, Alfred Thomson (Papa), and her sister, Mildred Ross Thomson (Auntie).
While I was two years old, we moved to a house on top of a red clay hill known to be the highest point in 20 miles around. It later became known as “Hurley Hill”. The house we moved into was built before the Civil War and had not been inhabited for many years. That is, not by humans. The neighbors in the town of Beltsville, Md. informed us that it was definitely inhabited by many ghosts. After we moved in it didn’t take long to establish that the “ghosts” were: bats in the four chimneys, snakes, and many other critters who had found a nice dry place to make their homes. Needless to say, being only two years old, I was shielded from the trauma experienced by the other females in the family.
The main thing that I really remember about that house was the fact that I could lie in my bed and look outside through the cracks in the wall, and the fact that it was awfully cold in the winters. However, when the temperature got down near the zero mark we were allowed to roll up our covers and crowd into my Grandfather and Brother’s Bedroom over the kitchen, where a fire was kept going in the big old stove all night long.
There were many things that I do remember, and many more that I know were in my memory after being reminded of them by other family members. I remember standing in my crib and calling mother for her to come get me up and dressed after the other family members had had their breakfast and had gone on their way to their daily schedule of school and work. Another early memory I recall was that in the morning during the winter I would kneel on a window box in a corner of the kitchen watching mother hang the wash on the line, and each piece would freeze in the strangest shape as she pinned it to the clothes line.
We had a vegetable garden in back of the house, which my Grandfather tended. One day he was planting various vegetables and he called to me and told me, “You are just 3 feet tall and I need you to lie down after each time I plant one of these plants, so I will know just where to put the next one”. Oh, I felt so important; I was really helping Papa with his work. We all loved Papa so much; he was always trying to help all of us feel good about ourselves.
Another incident that I remember clearly, but I don’t remember if I was actually taking part in it, or just watching my brother. He had learned that if he would put an apple, or other tasty tidbit, on the end of a long stick, and hold it over a pig’s head as he jumped on its back, he could ride the pig all over the farm. I guess I was just watching, because my brother was the one who got the spanking.
As I got older, I was able to recall more things we enjoyed doing on the top of “Hurley Hill”. We had many fruit trees: very tall cherry trees that towered over the top of the house, as well as quite a few shorter ones around the house. We had pear trees, apple trees, one persimmon tree, and especially one sweet dark red cherry tree. However, the big cherry tree harvest was the most exciting event to me. There were a half dozen of those tall trees, and folks from all over the community came with their buckets and ladders, and climbed all over those trees. My only problem was that I wasn’t allowed to climb up in the trees with them, and I wanted so much to be up there with everyone else. Of course, I did finally grow up enough to be part of the pickers, but, somehow it didn’t seem like as much fun as I thought it would be.
During the ten years we lived on “Hurley Hill,” twice we had a National Geographic Survey Team come, and build a 100 foot tower right over a stone marker in our side yard to update the survey of our nation’s shoreline. It seems our eastern shoreline is receding and this was the way they were able to keep track of how much land was being washed away year by year. (Now this is done by aerial photography.)
This also brings to mind that there was another event that happened twice in the 10 years we lived there - we were surrounded by a forest fire. It was really frightening to stand in our front yard, and see the fire getting closer all the time, as well as see the adults who were beating the flames as they would get to the edge of the lawn. The fire fighters eventually won out. The ones who were there helping beat the fire out said the house was saved because we had a large expanse of green lawn around it.
As I mentioned earlier, the hill we lived on was a red clay hill. Do you know what a red clay hill does when it becomes very wet? It turns into a very big sliding board. It would freeze in the winter, but when it thawed it would be almost impossible to travel on. My mother would never leave home in the spring without having sand bags and shovels in the car. One morning, on her way back from taking us to school, she found a bread truck stuck on the hill. She got out her equipment, and with her help the Bread Man was able to go on his way. Of course, he insisted he pay for her help, but she refused. Somehow he found out when her birthday was, and that we were at our cottage in Sylvan Shores near Annapolis, for the summer. Needless to say, we were all very surprised when he showed up with a beautiful, big Birthday Cake for her on the 29th of July.
I was excited when I heard that a family had moved in next door to us that had a daughter my age. Of course this was out in the country, so next door meant at least a mile down the road from us. That didn’t seem too far to walk on a Saturday morning, especially when I knew that my friend’s mother did her weeks baking on Saturday mornings and always sliced a loaf of Cinnamon-raisin bread while it was still hot.
While we were living on the hill our family increased by 2; Thelma and Pernie Marcus moved in with us. The sisters were in need of a place to stay while they finished high school and my parents invited them to join our family. During this time my mother and dad were active in the 4-H Club in Beltsville. In addition to all the usual activities of the club, they also had a very active Chorus and sang all over the County, even on the radio’s “Farm and Home Hour” program, at least once each year. This was one activity we all enjoyed, especially the year when Arthur Godfrey was the young redheaded announcer, and he had such fun teasing and flirting with the girls.
I was only 10 or 11 during this time and too young to officially join the 4-H Club. So I was not a member, but was always at the meetings and rehearsals since they were held after school. This was where I first learned to sing the alto part, since they were usually in need of more altos.
Such were the pleasures of living in the country. However, when I was 12 years old, Dad received a notice from the government saying they were buying our 54 acres, as well as many of the neighbor’s homes and land, to build a town they would call “Greenbelt.” We were given 90 days to find a place to live and move. We went back to Hyattsville to a house on Oakwood Road, which was later renamed 40th Avenue. I often wonder how in the world we managed in that 3 bedroom and 1 bath house with 4 adults, 4 teenagers, and me.
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