God
rest their souls.Key Note: My brother is the oldest, then five girls and then me (13 years, between my brother and me); the baby in the family (or the spoiled rotten little brother, as my sisters always tell me!!). I was born in Washington, D.C. - Columbia Hospital for Women, but the first place I remember was Falls Hill, a suburb of Falls Church, Virginia (Northern Virginia).
Mom was a Home-Economics teacher (for those who don’t know, that is a person who actually taught children how to cook, sew and do other chores, around the house!), for many years and then she became a Guidance Counselor, for a local high school in Falls Church, Virginia (George Marshall High School). Being the mother to seven, she loved to cook – she loved to cook! My father was a government contracted Chemical Engineer. As such, he helped create the first Atomic bomb, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and helped create the Department of the Air Force, as a civilian, in Washington, D.C. Together, they set several rules, but the rule that was drummed into all of us, was fairly simple: “Dinner is at 6 pm, on the dot, and there will be NO snacking after 4 pm. You will eat all of your dinner, or you will not be allowed to leave the table, until you do so.” (Oh, yes, the entire family ate at the kitchen table; no exceptions, unless you were sick or at someone else’s house, for dinner).
More History: My grandfather, Robert Newton Adams and his brother, Charles Edwin Adams, from Baltimore Maryland, were diagnosed, in the early 1900’s, with Tuberculosis (TB) and spent many years in the Blue Ridge Tuberculosis Clinic (in 1920, Clinic was changed to Sanatorium), in Charlottesville, Virginia. There they met Beth Harding, who also had TB and later died from it. She had two sisters, Floride and Rebecca, who would come to visit, from time to time. The two sisters met and fell in love with the two brothers and eventually got married (Robert married Floride and Charles married Rebecca). So, there is the link, of the Adams’ from Baltimore and the Harding’s from Kilmarnock. Kilmarnock Virginia is located in an area of the Chesapeake Bay, called the Northern Neck. When my grandfather, Robert N. died in 1924, my father inherited approximately 60 acres of land in the Northern Neck (mostly Waterfront Property). In 1960, my parents decided to take advantage of my father’s property, and they built a two-story cinderblock house (in 1961/62), that they called the ‘cottage’ on Dividing Creek.
And so, life as the youngest began. Here are of few of the things that I can remember, growing up in Falls Church and in Kilmarnock.