Baltimore (well, Baltimore County).
Today was both a lovely day and an emotional day for me. Ken, Brad, and I took a tour of the neighborhood where Bev and they grew up, and where Bev lived until moving to NY in 1973, at age 21. Technically, we aren’t in Baltimore, but Baltimore County, near the city line. Bev used to regularly cut high school and go into the city.
Ken planned a great itinerary around the neighborhoods he, Bev, and Brad grew up in, starting with the house in which Bev, Ken, and Jerry grew up, at 3641 Forest Hills Road in Lochearn, Maryland. Bev’s friends Susie and Sandi Sutcliff lived right next door. This house and the entire area was built at the time the Seviers moved in, in the early 50’s, and is now a working-middle class neighborhood.
Ken and Brad were great traveling partners, as they have fabulous memories for details, and because Brad grew up just two streets aways they knew each other even before Bev’s dad, Horace, married Marie, Brad’s mom, when Bev was around 14, after Bev, Ken, and Jerry lost their mother, Kay, in 1964 when Bev was 11, and Brad. Little Ken, and T.J.’s father passed.
The local Lions Club was also a center of community life, and so their parents knew one another even before the families blended. Brad’s mother, later Bev’s step-mother, even worked part-time in Campfield elementary, which Bev attended.
Ken and Brad recalled the same early experiences, knew the same people and places, including the former Seton Institute woods that ran behind Bev’s house, and was a source of great adventure and fun for the boys, although Bev told me she was always envious because she wasn’t allowed into those woods, given her age. It was great to see the house, and spread some of Bev’s ashes at this home where she started her life.
We visited Bev’s elementary school, Campfield Elementary, where some of Bev’s ashes were released there also. So long ago.
Then onto 8806 Greens Lane in Randallstown, where Bev and her brothers, including three brand new brothers (Brad, Little Ken, and T.J., then very young) lived after Horace and Marie married, when Bev was about 14. I visited this house several times before Marie moved to Charlestown. Of course, I released more of Bev’s ashes.
Of course, Woodlawn High was a must, where the Baltimore Girls Club had its origins (although they didn’t know that at the time 😊), with Bev, Suzanne, Marilyn, and Cynthia, graduating in 1970. More ashes were spread.
We visited several other places, including the middle school, and wound up our tour at Woodlawn Cemetery, a beautiful, large, and serene place, with 36,000 graves and where Bev’s parents, Horace and Kay (the first, but without the “e”) are buried. Kay died at age 44 in 1964, when Bev was just 11, and Horace died in 1971, age 54, when Bev was 19. I was very happy to release more of Bev’s ashes here, mingling with the earth in which her parents are buried.
At the end of our afternoon, we headed back to Ken’s, and spent just a short while as it was getting on and we had an hour’s drive back to Hanover. Estelle is suffering, as is Ken, but it was lovely to see her, and we met their granddaughter Saoirse, who was spending time with Estelle while we out. I’m sorry I didn’t take a photo of Saoirse, but didn’t think of it at the time.
I was planning to release some of Bev’s ashes at Ken and Estelle’s, but before I did Ken said he would like that as he would then know that Bev was always somewhere in his garden. Bev and Ken had a special and loving relationship.
Ken and I didn’t spend any time together, given circumstances, but that will happen next time. Brad and I headed back to Hanover, where Gay and Brad made a lovely dinner, and we spent the evening afterwards sitting outside in the warm evening weather. Tomorrow I leave, heading toward Sevierville, Tennessee, after first visiting Takoma Park, MD, where Bev and Suzanne lived in 1976-77, and then the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, where Bev worked at the time. From DC, I’ll head into Virginia to Front Royal, where I’ll spend the night, and then take Skyline Drive into the Blue Ridge Mountains heading into southern Virginia and on to Tennessee.