September 25, 2011

Talbot Hall, built in 1799, was given to the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia in 1954. /Virginian Pilot photo.

You’re standing on the veranda of one of Norfolk’s most historic houses, looking at one of the most stunning vistas in the city. Between giant magnolia trees a sprawling lawn falls away to the shores of the Lafayette River, framed by trees that were planted to describe the arc of the setting sun from the shortest to the longest days of the year.

It’s quiet here, quiet enough to hear the footfalls of history.

The land was originally granted to the Tanner family by the king of England for transporting settlers to the new colony (the Tanners of Tanner’s Creek, before it became the Lafayette River). There were Langleys and Harwoods and then, in the late 1700s, the Talbots, a well-connected Norfolk family. One of them owned a shipyard further up the creek.

Solomon Talbot built the Georgian-style house as a country place for his son, Thomas, beginning in1799. It was made of bricks fired from clay found on the property and cemented by mortar of sand and oyster shells. Originally, there were about 2,000 acres, stretching from the Granby Street Bridge to Wards Corner.

Over the mantel in the parlor of Talbot Hall is a bas relief federal seal, complete with an eagle, “E Pluribus Unum” and 17 stars – indicating that it was installed sometime after March 1, 1803, the date when Ohio, the 17th state, was admitted to the Union.

Now the footfalls you’re hearing are those of Union troops on the march. Having landed at Ocean View on May 10, 1862, they circled the head of Tanner’s Creek and pushed toward downtown. At one point, according to legend, they invaded the deserted Talbot property and, with lighted torches in hand, were on the brink of burning down the manor house.

But then, the legend continues, an elderly slave called their attention to the seal and the commander, assuming the Talbots to be Union sympathizers, gave the order to extinguish the torches.

So the house survives as one of the few old-style plantation houses in Norfolk. There’s a softness about it now because the old bricks, which had started to crumble, were covered by stucco sometime around 1930. The ceilings in the downstairs part appear to be 11 feet high, with dentiled plaster trim embellished with carved daisies. According to Louise Venable Kyle, one of the best historians of this period, doors throughout the house were paneled with representations of a cross and open Bible to keep the house free of witches. The window panes were of hand blown glass with clearly visible wavy imperfections.

Minton Wright Talbot, born at Talbot Hall in 1868, had a small nursery on the property where he grew trees. He became friends with Norfolk horticulturalist Fred Heutte and planted many crape myrtles, live oaks and Lombardy poplars in the area near the mansion. He planted live oaks on either side of the Granby Street Bridge and gave the camellia bushes that flank the green houses at City Park.

Talbot turned the third floor of the house into a museum where he displayed his shell collection, his boyhood specimens of snakes and bird eggs, as well as ledgers, documents and objects of art collected by family members on trips abroad.

Carol, the only child of Minton and Cornelia Talbot, married William Egelhoff who, in 1954, decided to go into the Episcopal ministry. At this point, she gave Talbot Hall and the 8.5 acres surrounding it to the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. Since then the George P. Gunn Conference Center and a home for the bishop of the diocese were built nearby.

Kyle wrote, “Talbot Hall will remain an enduring home for the Diocese with a rich heritage from the past.”

But now, 57 years later, the diocese is considering the sale of Talbot Hall. A properties committee recommended to the diocese’s executive committee this month that it be sold and the offices moved to “a more demographically central location,” referring to the diocese’s territory stretching from the Eastern Shore to Danville. There are several questions yet to be answered, however, including whether or not the sale and move are feasible.

Old Talbot Hall may be a bit musty now, and there are one or two cracks in the plaster walls. But those are minor things when you look down that long, long historical road or stand on the veranda and trace the setting sun.

September 18, 2011

If you have a tattoo, thank a sailor.

The story goes that famed British explorer Capt. James Cook came across elaborately decorated South Pacific Islanders in the late 1760s and his sailors, taking a liking to the body art, took it home with them. They even adopted the islanders’ word tattow – meaning skin puncturing – for this new art form.

It didn’t take long for tattoos to catch on, especially with British and then American sailors.

Among the letters at the Mariners’ Museum as those of George Geer, a first class fireman aboard the ironclad Monitor. As he wrote to his wife, Martha, in early 1862, “I wish you could see the bodys of some of these old saylors. They are regular picture books, (and) have India ink pricked all over their bodys, one has a Snake coiled around his leg (and) some have splendid done pieces of coats of arms of state American flags and most of all have the crucifixion on some part of their body.”

Many traditional tattoos related a sailor’s journeys: an anchor if he had crossed the Atlantic, a clipper ship if he had rounded Cape Horn, a standing turtle for crossing the Equator, a golden dragon for crossing the International Date Line.

Tattooing reflected status: a rope around a sailor’s wrist marked him as a a deckhand. Divers were partial to the old fashioned dive helmets. Some who went aloft had the letters HOLD on the knuckles of one hand and FAST on the other to help keep them safe.

There were and still are dozens of superstitions: crosses on the soles of their feet to ward off sharks; a pig and rooster on the top of their feet to symbolize the animals that were kept below in wooden crates that were known to float when ships went down. Some wore religious tattoos to be sure they’d receive proper burials if they died in foreign lands.

And much more, as the public can learn at a free program this Thursday at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. The 6 p.m. event, “Skin Deep, Sailors Tattoos in Norfolk,” features Tom Moore, photo curator of the Mariners’ Museum who will show examples of some of the many traditions and symbols. And a Virginia Beach couple who own the new and growing Trinity Tattoos will show examples of their work.

Tattooing became a big business in Navy towns like Norfolk, with parlors interspersed with bars during the city’s bad old days in the early 1900s. And legends, like August Bernard “Cap’n” Coleman – who had a thriving business on Main Street – were born.

According to the Mariners’, Coleman worked as a seaman and as a tattooed man for circus side shows before settling in Norfolk. “His slight build contrasted with his salty attitude and his remarkable flesh, which featured flags, daggers, anchors, a battleship, flowers, a naked woman, and a permanent pair of ‘socks.’ ”

Norfolk, hoping to clean up its image, banned tattoo parlors in 1950, but gradually they’ve come back as the art form has moved upscale.

Coleman became a legend among tattoo artists.

“He was my great grandfather, I guess you’d say,” said Dave Lukeson, the owner, with his wife, Melissa, of Trinity Tattoo on Bonney Road. “He moved the trees away for us; he made the forest a lot cleaner.”

Lukeson, whose body is covered with tattoos that mark events of his life, as well as metal piercing and a Jack Sparrow-type mustache, has several sailors for clients. But there are many others, including professionals, many of whom are women.

He said of the markings, “These are things on the outside that symbolize what’s inside. It’s a way to share without speaking.”

We spoke while he was outlining a galaxy of stars for Ashley Wolford next to snowflakes on her arm – all symbolizing works of God, she said. Her inspiration, a biblical verse that goes something like, “God makes the stars and the sky and he calls them each by name.”

Danielle Weier waited in another studio to have the words tattooed on her back: “Nothing is more powerful that beauty in a wicked world.”

Some of the designs, like the ruby crested hummingbird I saw on another woman’s back, are quite artistic. And you’re tempted, you know: something small perhaps….

Photo: “Cap” Coleman next to his shop on Main Street in Norfolk during the 1930s. Courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum.

Sept. 11, 2011

A September morning in Hampton Roads – sunrise: 6:46, partly cloudy with an expected high of 80 degrees. A nice day. Large swells associated with a hurricane far out at sea appear at the Oceanfront.

Eastbound traffic at the Downtown Tunnel begins to pick up after an all-night lane closure.

Norfolk libraries have scheduled “Meet Arthur,” a children’s story hour about that lovable aardvark who always seems to say the right thing. At the same time the Newport News Barnes & Noble expects young visitors for “A Mouse in the House” story session.

The Virginia Marine Science Museum is showing “Reptiles: The Beautiful and the Deadly.”

An Olde Towne historic lantern tour is planned for this evening. So is “Back in the Saddle Again,” a concert by Aerosmith at Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater.

A teacher in world geography and history at Lansdown High is planning a writing assignment on crabs in the Chesapeake Bay.

A Brittany spaniel named Bogie in the North End and a reddish-brown mutt named Zoe in Kempsville have gone missing.

A large photograph showing NC Highway 12 being relocated at Hatteras Island appears in the newspaper. Also in North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole has scheduled a press conference in Salisbury to announce her candidacy for the Senate.

Closer to home, Virginia Beach is planning to replenish sand at Ocean Park and Aeries on the Bay from sand dredged from Lynnhaven Bay. The opening date for a Wal-Mart next to Chesapeake Square Mall has been postponed.

Volunteers are needed in many places, including Lake Taylor Hospital and the South Hampton Roads YWCA. Volunteer music performers are sought by The Ballentine, an assisted living facility in Norfolk. Meals-on- Wheels in Chesapeake needs people to deliver prepared food to homebound elderly persons.

Maersk plans to announce that it will be opening a major container port on the Portsmouth waterfront. Blockbuster says it will reduce the number of VHS tapes it rents in order to stock shelves with more popular DVDs.

A Dilbert cartoon shows a hapless worker boasting he is going to a special cubicle where he’s bound to be promoted – but there isn’t any such cubicle. “The first round of layoffs is always the cruelest,” one of the regulars says.

On the classified pages, Norfolk announces several surplus cars are being auctioned, along with “many more items too numerous to mention.” In items wanted, a man advertises for a 410 double barrel shotgun he wants to buy for his grandchild.

In sports, Isaiah Hunter, a 6-foot-4 point guard for Independence High in Charlotte, plans to announce that he will commit to playing for Old Dominion. The U.S. Open Billiards Championship resumes at the Chesapeake Convention Center. Several local high school field hockey games are scheduled.

Also in sports, a controversy over whether Redskins coach Marty Schottenheimer will play quarterback Jeff George or Tony Banks after having pulled George during Sunday’s 30-3 loss to San Diego.

And speculation over whether the legendary Michael Jordan, who was “99.9 percent” certain he’d never play another NBA game, will make a second comeback at 38 by signing with the Washington Wizards. A full day of baseball is scheduled as teams move towards clinching playoff berths.

At 8:35 a.m., drive time, commuters tuning in to WHRO hear Dwight Davis on “Morning Classics” segue out of the news into a light classical piece. On WHRV, “Morning Edition” takes us through the top stories of the day. Pop stations weigh in with hot singles, including Alicia Keys’ smoky “Fallin.’ ”
It’s 8:46 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001.

Now 8:46:26.

And our lives change forever.

September 4, 2011

John Parker pauses before an immense sandstone-colored brick house on lower Colonial Avenue. It’s big enough for three townhouses, with two rounded turret-shaped bulges in front.

It was built by Frank S. Royster who made his fortune selling guano, or bird-droppings, once used as fertilizer.

“William Royster, his son, got the first speeding ticket in the city of Norfolk,” Parker says. “He got it on Colley Avenue and he told the policeman – I think he was going 15 miles an hour – that he’d gone that fast on Broadway in New York and he didn’t understand why he couldn’t go that fast in Norfolk.”

This is the kind of detail that Parker has uncovered about his neighborhood, the original section of Ghent. The former head reference librarian at Kirn Memorial Library has turned 30 years of research into a self-published book, “Thirteen Blocks: A Social History of Ghent in Norfolk, Virginia.”

It’s dedicated to his late wife, Rose Marie Norwood Parker, who was a long-time librarian at Kirn.

“I was born in Norfolk,” he says. “I went to school in Norfolk; when I got back from Vietnam I got a job in Norfolk; I found Rose Marie in Norfolk. So this is my attempt to give something back.”

It’s a gorgeous day for a stroll around the sometimes ostentatious neighborhood that sprang up around 1890 after a bridge linked downtown Norfolk to what had been sprawling farmland, streams and swamp to the north. And Parker, seemingly bursting with details about the original occupants, can’t wait to show it off.

Pausing before a seven-room, elaborately shingled house on Pembroke Avenue, he says, “This is John Wale’s house, and his wife Mary’s. He was the only person in the United States who was a bank president and also an Episcopalian minister. You see, he’d got it all together; he was going to do the mortal thing and the spiritual thing.”

Ghent owes its name to Richard Drummond who owned a fleet of sailing ships and brought back a copy of the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement that ended the War of 1812. He built a house on Smith’s Creek – later the Hague – and named it for the treaty. Seeing potential for growth, a group of investors calling themselves the Norfolk Company bought up nearby land and, led by a visionary civil engineer, John Graham, began developing it.

Another book on the historic neighborhood, Ghent: John Graham’s Dream, Norfolk, Virginia’s Treasure by Amy Waters Yarsinske, was recently published.

Parker, 67, has dug up details about seemingly all the early settlers in old Ghent, their servants, garden parties and foibles. There’s even a news report about a pet dog, “Tom,” killed by a trolley.

Parker is a tenacious researcher. The library had deeds of all the houses. He went to cemeteries to learn dates of owners’ deaths, then to bound volumes of local newspapers to find obituaries. Then, having pored over the papers for anecdotes, the challenge was to make it all interesting to readers.

We stop on Fairfax Avenue (It used to be, for reasons unknown, Mary’s Avenue) to view the former home of Edmund and Cordelia Ruffin. Edmund’s grandfather had fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, and his son had proudly named the boy Edmund Sumter Ruffin – even though grandpa, “having decided that he had no desire to live in the United States of America, loaded his musket, inserted it into his mouth, and blew off the top of his white-haired head.”

No tour of Ghent would be complete without a stop at Parker’s house on Warren Crescent. The Queen Anne structure was built by Leonard Pascal Roberts, a successful grocer.

“He kept a notebook in the grocery store and when people would tell him jokes he’d write the jokes down in the notebook and the day after his funeral a whole bunch of relatives gathered on the back porch with that joke book and they sat and read those jokes. I really like that image.”

Parker’s house is loaded with framed pictures, maps, movie posters, a bust of Charles Dickens and pinups – Rose Marie even bought some for him. There must be thousands of books, from classics to mysteries. And neatly arranged on a shelf, are ten of his own so-far-unpublished novels. They’re about the adventures of a family in Chapel Hill. “My Sister the Witch” is one of them.

It’s hard to tell whether Parker prefers digging around in historical details or in the minds of fictional characters, but you have the feeling they’re developed with as much attention to detail as the lives of his long-gone neighbors.

Parker before his house on Warren Crescent. By Paul Clancy