Before my memory begins, but not really so very long ago, the only way to cross the Chesapeake Bay was in a boat. Even after the first span of the Bay Bridge was built in 1952, a culture of geographical isolation persisted. Even after the second span was added, a trip to the Western Shore was a big, rare, deal in my growing up years in Centreville. As a result, pretty much everyone on the Eastern Shore lived a life deeply rooted in farming and immersed in the world of watermen. Even if you didn’t grow food in the soil or pull it out of the water yourself, blood or business linked you to those who did. Anyone you saw in the post office, be they teachers or bankers or car mechanics, were entwined in the specific geographies of this area in a material, dirt-beneath-your-fingernails, river-water-in-your-ears kind of way. 

The defiant old refrain, “Don’t give a damn ’bout the whole state of Maryland, I’m from the EASTERN SHORE” came from resistance to building the Bay Bridge, and reflected the pride and fierce insistence on retaining a self-sufficient existence entwined in community and developed over centuries. There were two sides to this coin, of course (or more, if you want to get inter-dimensional about it). Self-sufficiency and a deep sense of place and community in the “land of pleasant living” also meant insularity, a lack of opportunities and resources from the outside world, and new ideas coming as fast as molasses going uphill in January, as my mother used to say.

It’s a bit different today. I left, as so many of us do, and returned years later to find that change does come eventually, even here, where the culture and the landscape seem to measure time on an entirely different scale from the outside world. Nowadays, farms and fishing no longer connect the whole of the population to the rhythms of the seasons, the taste of brackish water, and the squidge of mud caked on tractor tires. People can live on one side of the Bay and work on the other. Retirees are drawn here, contributing experience and perspectives from illustrious lives and all kinds of careers in all kinds of places. And of course, a generation of digital nomads can live where they choose while working in industries that weren’t dreamt of, not so very long ago. 

Unequivocally, this is progress. Like all progress, it creates opportunities and uncovers gaps that didn’t previously exist… or hadn’t been recognized. It means things are different for the crop of farmers and custodians of the land who have been coming up into 21st century Eastern Shore life. They have access to resources, ideas, and possibilities unavailable to previous generations—but peers and colleagues are a little harder to find, and the average post office interaction is less apt to include someone who can tell you where to get a water pump for an old 1972 John Deere tractor, or how to navigate the paperwork for the newest USDA farm program, or how to ensure that the farm will still be here for your kids decades from now—that is, if the kids want anything to do with it. 

Enter Next Generation Land Stewards! 

NGLS is a new program under the ShoreRivers umbrella, conceived and created by two ShoreRivers staff members: Agriculture and Outreach Coordinator Laura Wood, and Director of Community Engagement, Darran Tilghman. Laura and Darran were each navigating this 21st century landscape with their families, and knew they couldn’t be the only ones asking the same questions and working through the same challenges. With a healthy dose of the hallmark Eastern Shore mindset of self-sufficiency, they recognized the need and invented a solution. 

Darran and Laura sent out a call for others in similar situations to join an inaugural cohort of up and coming land stewards, assembling a group of active farmers with a variety of interests and specialties, people with non-farm day jobs, and members of upcoming generations preparing for the responsibility of protecting and preserving family farms. With a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, they developed a plan for a new program offering support, community, and resources to people working to preserve and protect Eastern Shore land while making them productive, profitable, and joyful for current and future generations. The first year, a pilot, would feature four gatherings where the group would eat together, hear from local experts on relevant topics, learn about each other’s farms and properties, and get to know each other. After the first two convenings, the program is already, without reservation, a raging success.

The first gathering took place on a sparkling late spring evening on the historic Hermitage Farm, beside the Chester River outside of Centreville. Dan Small, a field ecologist and manager of the Natural Lands Project at the Center for Environment and Society spoke and answered questions about how he helps public and private landowners navigate the incentive programs and access available funding to help generate income and support wildlife and clean water by installing wetlands and habitat buffers. Wildly Native Flower Farm in Chestertown hosted the second get-together, on an unbelievably hot morning in July. Liza Goetz led a tour of the farm and answered eager questions about the intricacies of a multi-generational business including grandparents, parents, and adult children participating and living on site. Michael Ports and David Satterfield of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy led a lively discussion about conservation easements. 

Common themes emerged from the earliest moments of the first event: Love of the natural beauty and native flora and fauna; hope that today’s children will feel as profoundly connected to the place as their parents, and that they’ll be able to make it work on the Eastern Shore if they choose to stay. The struggle to make a small farm a viable business, and the creative approaches people have taken to generate additional revenue, such as Airbnb-ing, events hosting, and other side-businesses—or, indeed, full-time day jobs. The challenges of multi-generational decision-making and maintaining relationships with stakeholders who may be faraway and may or may not understand the joys and miseries of protecting, preserving, and working the land. Concerns about climate change, sea level rise, and market fluctuations.

Connecting the future with the past

Farms and workboats are still iconic elements of Eastern Shore life, but unlike in years gone by, it’s perfectly possible in 2023 to to live outside the daily dirt-beneath-your-fingernails, river-water-in-your-ears experience that was a matter of course until so very recently. The losses and gains of such changes are part of a natural flow; humans have always moved around and explored. What is constant are the impacts: of humans on the land and each other, and of the specificities of environments such as the Eastern Shore on the people who inhabit them. Our lives are enriched in these intersections, and at the same time, what we lose in the process makes us pine for a past that seems to slip away just as we begin to appreciate it. 

Already, Next Generation Land Stewards seems to be charting a course between overcoming the challenges and embracing the possibilities of a forward looking vision. I foresee it becoming an enduring and essential source of information and community for upcoming farmers and custodians of the land as they find ways, in Laura’s words, “to navigate the responsibilities of multigenerational land stewardship,” in community with others who are also caring for the land with an eye on the future while managing it for financial and agricultural success in the present, and preserving the sense of timelessness and singularity that makes it feel so special. 

Laura and Darran are full of visionary ideas for growing Next Generation Land Stewards beyond this initial year. Indeed, based on enthusiastic requests, additional informal get-togethers are in the works for this year to give the the group more chances to connect, share, ask questions, and hang out without agenda. ShoreRivers has already applied for funding to continue the program next year., If all goes well NGLS will become a deeply resourced and ongoing element of the organization’s portfolio, connecting and empowering successive new cohorts of Eastern Shore farmers and land stewards for years to come. 

Maria Wood traveled throughout the country as production and tour manager for award-winning musician David Grover, with whom she co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing education and fostering positive social change through music and music-making.  She returned to school mid-career, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College. More recently, she has written and taught on the meaning and impact of the musical Hamilton, served as Deputy Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jesse Colvin and was Executive Director of Chestertown RiverArts. She lives in a multigenerational human/feline household in Chestertown. 

There’s a group in Centreville that’s been gathering weekly for a late morning coffee break and social hour centered around a single loosely enforced qualification. It’s a fun, laid-back hang with a group of interesting characters from diverse backgrounds who all have at least one thing in common: they’ve served in our nation’s armed forces, serve those who have, or just want to show their support. 

Fred McNeil, a U.S. Army vet, retired teacher and coach, and longtime Centreville civic booster, likes to invite potential new recruits to the group to “Come have a cup of joe with G.I. Joe.”

The group is an offshoot of a Veterans Book that meets at the Centreville branch of the Queen Anne’s County library. Supported in part by a federal grant, the book club meets the second Tuesday of every month from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and aims to bring vets of all eras, ranks, branch, and length of service together to talk about their military and post-service experiences while providing, according to the mission statement, “an informal, supportive environment through works of literature.”

Diving in to both military fiction and nonfiction, the books that the group members read and talk about range from classic war stories to contemporary accounts of struggling with PTSD. McNeil, the moderator of this group, has seen firsthand that the material chosen can prompt therapeutical discussion by bringing up “closed off memories and emotions that are tough to share, particularly with those who haven’t experienced anything like it.”

Bob Nilsson, a Vietnam-era Marine who lives in Symphony Village, heard about the start of the Veterans Book Club, signed up at the library, went to the first meeting, and even though he didn’t know anyone there he was impressed by the group’s motivating goals and fellowship.

Six months into the book club, a desire among attendees to get together more often led to the weekly Veterans Café.  They landed at the Centreville Dunkin Donuts where they meet every Monday from 11 a.m. to noon.

“It’s grown like wildfire,” says Nilsson. “Started out with a handful, now we get over a dozen vets almost every week, sometimes 20 or more. We talk and share stories. It’s an opportunity to socialize. Conversation and camaraderie – there’s no agenda, no leaders, no membership, no dues, no application necessary, and just three rules: no religion, no politics, and no rank. It’s just friendship.”

“Really,” he says, “anybody can come. Vets, their caregivers, relatives of people who served, people who just want to learn more about the experiences of veterans, but primarily we just want to provide a safe place for these vets to discuss their experiences openly with people who can relate and maybe help when and how we can.”

Helping vets is something Nilsson knows about. After his USMC stint, Nilsson made a career in the international construction business, traveling the world to manage massively complex projects. During the Gulf War, he began making trips to Bethesda Naval Hospital to visit veterans. These early trips led to over 4,000 visits over 20 years, which in turn resulted in his non-profit organization, the 100 Entrepreneurs Project which mentors and supports vets looking to start their own business. Nilsson utilizes his business connections to bring veterans and mentors together and to help companies understand the importance of supporting the veteran community.

Nilsson also stresses the importance of supporting veterans caregivers. He says, “Caregivers who have a loved one who was severely injured during their service may have to provide not only the care of that loved one but an income to maintain all aspects of their lives. We want to give those caregivers the emotional support and understanding that there are others who know what they’re going through. They’re a huge part of this effort and we want to support them as well as the veterans in their care.”

Regarding efforts to assist veterans through these social opportunities, Fred McNeil says, “Most people who have served get out, go along with their lives and maybe never even need the VA benefits due them, but there are veterans out there who need help. There are over 3,000 vets in Queen Anne’s County. Under the umbrella of the Centreville Veterans Information Center or CVIC, which helps support all these endeavors, our goal for this year is to make personal contact with at least 10% of those people. Some of these folks might be dealing with all kinds of personal issues – limited income, isolation and loneliness, malnutrition, physical and mental health difficulties, housing and transportation problems, and technological challenges like access to computers and internet.”

“Social media is one of the keys,” adds Bob Nilsson. “A majority of vets are over 65. We should educate older people in how the internet can keep them connected to friends and family, but also to meet new people who they have so much in common with or who may be able to help satisfy some of their specific needs. Some of our members might be entitled to pensions. To collect, they wouldn’t know how to begin navigating the online bureaucratic hurdles that can be so frustrating. We want to help them fix that.”

“We want to assist our fellow vets,” says McNeil, “and as a group, we’ll work with existing service organizations, auxiliaries, the VA, whoever can help the vet get what they need.”

The Monday get-together in particular has opened lines of communication and established relationships with others outside the world of service vets.   For instance, the vets have bonded with the Dunkin employees. Nilsson says, “I believe that interacting with those of us who have been in the military helps put a real face to some things they might have only heard about, if that. History is right here. Right in their own backyard. And we’ve grown close to the people who work there. We think the world of them.”

The lovefest is mutual. Of the vets group, Dunkin manager Denae ‘Dee’ Green says, “They’re amazing. They’re so positive and they brighten everything up. Every time I see them it makes me smile. I wish they could come in every day.”

On the Monday I sat in with the group, a message about the Veterans Café from Dunkin corporate senior management was being passed around. “This is fantastic,” it read. “Thanks for sharing – I’ll make sure the local restaurant team sees this and is recognized. Love that Dunkin can play such a role.”

Random customers get in on the fun too. They buy gift cards for the group or rounds of coffee or donuts by the dozen. The good vibes are palatable.

CVIC has also initiated other efforts to serve local vets. A boat trip is planned as are field trips to the Washington D.C. war memorials and the Air Force Museum in Dover. There’s a glee club starting that will go to hospices and other facilities and sing for their patients and also attend events to sing the national anthem.

Thank You For Serving, viewable on QACTV & YouTube, are half hour episodes released every two weeks with McNeil taking some time to introduce a veteran to the community and share their experiences. Seeing the faces and hearing the stories of the servicemen and women who have lived them, “Lets the community know there are people who have sacrificed a part of their own lives for the sake of others,” says McNeil. “They’re not asking for anything. They just want you to know they’re there.” Those interviews will be forwarded to the Library of Congress for their collection.

“Also,” says McNeil, “the military is a sister and brotherhood. Though women are always welcome in any of these groups, there are plans for a women’s veterans club in Queen Anne’s County to address more specifically the needs and concerns of female vets.

“It’s past time to organize area vets in an organic way that asks nothing of them except show up,” he says. “We can’t help them if we don’t see them.

“Two veterans talking together is good. More is better.”

Drop in on a Monday Veterans Café at Dunkin or sign up for the Veterans Book Group at the Centreville Library. Contact Fred McNeil at 410-758-2850 or Bob Nilsson at [email protected] for more info regarding the Centreville Veterans Information Center. Find out more about the 100 Entrepreneurs Project on your socials and at 100entproject.com.

Brent Lewis is a native Chesapeake Bay Eastern Shoreman. He has published two nonfiction books about the region, “Remembering Kent Island: Stories from the Chesapeake” and a “History of the Kent Island Volunteer Fire Department.” His most recent book, “Stardust By The Bushel: Hollywood On The Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore”won a 2023 Independent Publishers award. His first novel, Bloody Point 1976, won an Honorable Mention Award at the 2015 Hollywood Book Festival. He and his wife Peggy live in Centreville, Maryland.

Editor Note: This month the Spy will be launching a Centreville edition to complement its sister educational news portals in Chestertown, Talbot County and Cambridge. In keeping with a tradition of dedicating a Spy newspaper to unique Eastern Shore leaders we have long admired we have selected the late Howard Wood  for that recognition. We asked Maria Wood, Spy columnist and granddaughter of Howard, to share her memories of one of Mid-Shore’s true conservation heroes and and put a well-deserved spotlight to a rare breed of citizenship. The Spy is currently having a startup campaign for the Centreville Spy which can be found here.

Howard Wood was a sailor, an attorney, a humanitarian, a conservationist, an adventurer, and my grandfather, not necessarily in that order. He devoted most of his long life to the Eastern Shore, particularly Queen Anne’s County. From the family farm on the Chester River, and his office six miles away on the corner of Lawyer’s Row in Centreville, he was a champion and steward of the natural beauty and abundance of the land and water, and an advocate, helper, and friend to the communities and people who live here.

A man can go by many names in 91½ years. There were those who called him Howard, but they may have been in the minority. To many, from all walks of life and of all ages, he was “Mr. Wood.” Even today it’s not hard to find people who speak of him with almost disbelieving affection, respect, and delight. Anyone in his family is familiar with the conversation:

“Oh, you’re Mr. Wood’s granddaughter/son/nephew/cousin? Oh yeah, I remember him, he was a good man. This one time, we were…”

…and off they go, telling a story, maybe of how he helped them, or improved something, or, just of a consistent reliability, doing more than required, in his methodical, mild-mannered, lawyerly view of the world. Off the top of my head, I can think of Black watermen, white farmers, skipjack captains, hunters, teachers, and many more with whom I’ve had a version of this conversation. Someday I’ll have it for the last time, but 15 years after Mr. Wood’s death, it’s still going strong. I feel both proud and inadequate every time.

To my grandmother, he was “R,” a mutual nickname they used nearly unfailingly, entirely mysterious to their grandchildren. In my own memory, he was “thee” to his siblings, with whom he followed the old-school Quaker practice of second-person singular pronouns. In possibly history’s politest protest movement, this usage was the early Quakers’ rejection of the second-person plural “you” customarily used to indicate deference to those in a higher social echelon. By the time it was in my grandfather’s lexicon, I think “thee” was somewhere between an endearment and a habit, but the Friends’ stubbornly egalitarian worldview in which it was rooted resonated deeply with the way he treated people and the way he presented himself.

Eventually he was “Dad” to his children, and then “Granpa” to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of my favorite memories is arriving at my grandparents house with my infant daughter, the first child in her generation. Granpa threw open the front door, bellowing “WHERE is my GREAT granddaughter?” At 84 years old, arthritic, and with little hearing left, his excitement at meeting the new baby made him perhaps more ebullient than I had ever seen him.

Sailing

He loved sailing more than almost anything. He was an original member of Corsica River Yacht Club, whose somewhat scrappy nature suited the Howard Wood ethic of focusing on what mattered. One of his guiding principles was “do what the weather tells you to do.” If the wind is right and the river is calling, don’t let the day go by without getting on a boat—there will be plenty of hot swampy days when the air doesn’t move to tend to bookkeeping or yard work. In his youth, he sailed on his Uncle Harry Wilmer’s sloop Elizabeth, and raced one-designs in regattas around the Chesapeake for decades. With Bill and Norman Grieb, his neighbors from across the river, he sailed on the log canoe Mayflower, exploits that Bill and Howard’s sons recounted just last week on a July 4th sail around Comegys Bight in Howard’s old daysailer.

He crossed the Atlantic Ocean by sail in a grand adventure that was a pinnacle of pride and delight. Maybe even more adventurously, he spent nine months in 1968 sailing down the inland waterway and to the Bahamas with my grandmother and my then-7 year old uncle. His 90^th birthday celebration was a sail on the skipjack Elsworth with a crowd of family and friends, courtesy of Captain Andy McCown of Echo Hill. His love of “messing about in boats” lives in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. If everyone in the family has a little Chester River water in our veins, it’s from him.

Conservation

He’s been fêted for service of organizations and institutions around the bay. A pioneering conservationist on the Eastern Shore, he was a founder of the Queen Anne’s County Conservation Association, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and the Chester River Association, which became one of the legacy organizations for the mighty ShoreRivers. He was a trustee with Maryland Environmental Trust, and in 1987 he was Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Conservationist of the Year.

He was involved with the Critical Areas Protection Act, which passed in 1984 and remains a significant tool for protecting the bay and its shorelines. In cooperation with the University of Maryland, he made Indiantown a demonstration farm in the 1980s, helping to establish best management practices for water quality protection while incorporating the economic and practical realities of real-life farming.

People

Yet, there was  more to Howard Wood’s contributions than protecting and preserving the land and water. People had to be in the picture as well. For over 42 years in his law practice, he helped people who needed it, without regard to race or class, a not altogether common philosophy at the time. After his (semi-)retirement, his old clients still called on him for assistance. He said “they’re like members of the family.”

During the civil rights movement, he proposed that the Centreville Town Commissioners establish a biracial committee through which Black residents could express what they needed and wanted, and the white executive and legislative officials could, by listening and acting, begin to address the issues and possibly avert the unrest that would rock nearby communities in the years to come. There were surely other factors that kept Centreville relatively peaceful in those years compared with neighboring county seats, but this straightforward, reasonable approach from a community leader may have helped.

In 1992, responding to a severe housing shortage, Howard and Mary Wood established the Spaniard Neck Foundation to raise money for low-interest loans and grants to help with housing related costs. Governor William Schaefer recognized their efforts in 1988 when the  He served on the board of the Kent & Queen Anne’s Hospital, as a director of the Centreville National Bank, on the Maryland state Attorney’s Grievance Commission, and on the vestry of St. Paul’s Church in Centreville.

Personal Connections 

The list of such accomplishments is too long to fully explore here. But in my observation, personal relationships were his most important contributions to the Eastern Shore. That’s why so many people are still excited to talk about what he did for them, and with them, and the way he made them feel. Last week at a 4th of July crab feast, I heard just such a story.

It won’t surprise you to learn that high-speed internet was a long time coming to the farm. As recently as 2009, in a quest to do better than dialup, a family member looked into broadband. There was a chance a signal from an old fire tower across the river could do the trick, so two technicians drove out to assess the situation. After a search for a suitable site—close enough to the house, with an unobstructed line of sight, and access to electricity, it was not looking good. There was some discussion of trying the roof, but the guys understandably looked askance at that prospect. During the friendly chitchat as they wrapped up the disappointing housecall, one of the technicians realized where he was.

“Oh, is this Mr. Wood’s place? Oh yeah, I’ve been here before, I remember him. He was a good man. This one time… ”

… and he was off. It emerged that in the days of the Spaniard Neck Foundation, in addition to conveyancing deeds, administering loans, and untold other tasks associated with such an endeavor, Mr. Wood had invited kids from the families the foundation was working with to the farm. He taught them to swim and to row a boat, and if my own childhood is anything to go by, probably got them to pick up some sticks, too. He gave them a good time and made human connections, making manifest his instinctive understanding that conservation means little if the people in this unique place don’t take the time or have the opportunity to commune with the land and the water.

Those warm memories of a childhood day on the farm buoyed the now-grown up internet specialist, and he had a brainstorm. Maybe he could catch that broadband signal after all. A little more testing and fiddling, and he found an auspicious spot on the far edge of the front lawn. Pretty soon, a clip from the David Letterman show was streaming in, at a bit rate beyond dial up wildest dreams. There’s almost nothing about that sentence that my grandfather would have understood, or found relevant, but that’s progress for you, even on the Eastern Shore.

Saving the Bay: People Working for the Future of the Chesapeake, quotes Howard Wood as saying “Part of the Bay is beyond the borders of the stream. It includes the land, forested shorelines, the historic landscapes, a sense of heritage and place, and the connection to the people who live on the land and water. Those may be more important than just straight water-quality issues. Certainly here on the Eastern Shore, along these rivers, in these communities, on these family farms, all of those things tug at our hearts.”

The practical, patient way that he lived that insight is what brings smiles to the faces of those who still remember Mr. Wood with such delight. Because sharing what he loved about this place was almost as important to him as helping people get into safe, clean homes, the splashes of a boy into the Chester River on a hot and sticky summer day rippled through the decades, eventually bringing YouTube to the 11th generation of this family on the old farm beside the river. Those ripples and many others, large and small, endure—a legacy, and an example for the rest of us.

Maria Wood traveled throughout the country as production and tour manager for award-winning musician David Grover, with whom she co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing education and fostering positive social change through music and music-making.  She returned to school mid-career, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College. More recently, she has written and taught on the meaning and impact of the musical Hamilton, served as Deputy Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jesse Colvin and was Executive Director of Chestertown RiverArts. She lives in a multigenerational human/feline household in Chestertown.