The Delmar Diner

Above photo is of The Delmar Diner.  The Diner has had a number of names and a number of renovations over it's 62 years of existence. 

About 1958 Ed Wainwright purchased Vern's Drive-in. This was the original restaurant. Vern's had been built by Vernon Livington in 1956.  He contracted out the actual running of the restaurant to another company.  That company ran up unpaid bills and by 1958 the restaurant was sold.

Ad from 1956

Above Ad from 1963.  The restaurant became part of the State line Motel complex at the corner of State street and RT13. The name was changed to The State Line Restaurant.  The restaurant was managed by a number of people.  

above ad from 1968, In the 1960s and 1970s it became Orrell's Surrey Restaurant run by Jim and Ann Orrell.

In the 1980s and 1990s The Restaurant was The Piper Family Inn and Duckblind Restaurant.  Also just called Pipers Family Inn  or Piper's Restaurant.  It was run by Alexander J. Bubas.

I could not find an ad for The Eagle Diner but in 1998 Piper's became The Eagle Diner with new management and run by Osman Arziman. .  In 2001 it was the Seagull Restaurant run by Rose and Osman Arziman.  In 2002 it became the Delmar Diner also run by Matt Ceylan. 

The State Line Texaco 1958

One of the first things Edward Wainwright did after buying the land and restaurant at State Street Extended and Dual RT13 was to build a Texaco Station in 1958.  After that he would add his motel buildings, pool, and convention center. 

Today hidden somewhere under the Thirsty's exterior is a 1958 gas station.

1965 ad when Cecil Jones ran the station.

Jimmy Hastings

Jimmy Hastings in the 1940s at his home on East Street Delmar Maryland
Jimmy was the son of Carlton James Hastings (1920-1968) and Melba Elnora Baker Hastings (1924-2012).  Photo from Patsy Bridge

The Traveler Motel / Sunset Motel

Originally built in 1959 on 7 acres of land next to the Maryland Delaware State Line by Mary "Mom" Kerekesh as the Sunset Motel.  Mary had owned a motel on the Old RT13/Delmar road prior to this also called the Sunset Motel.  Mary death in 1963 had her estate put the motel up for sale for $60,000.  The property had a string of owners operators over the next 20 years and it changed name to The Traveler Motel.  Some of the people who have operated it are; Clifford Abbott, Lawrence Hancock. Wayne L. Phillips, Harry Allen Banks and finally in 1979 Gambhirsinh C. Chudasama.  The property today is older but kept up and does more long term rentals then over night stays.    

Know What They Are?

Old tools of the day or actually maybe still used. These chisel like cutters are Button Hole Cutters.  They come in different sizes for the button hole.  The tailor would put the fabric on a cutting board, mark where the button hole goes,  and press the correct size cutter down and you should have a clean button hole.

The Caboose Rail Road Stove

Above is a very poor photo of the pot belly stove in the Delmar caboose, somewhere I have better and will update this with a better photo when I find it.  The next time you are over to the caboose take a look at the stove.

The pot belly stove is a cast-iron wood/coal burning stove that is round with a bulge in the middle of it. Its name is derived from resemblance of the stove to that of a fat man’s pot belly,  Usually those that were used in schools and general stores stood on 12 inch legs, however a stove on a railroad car is different.

The Caboose Rail Road Stove,  at the front of this loading door, you will notice that it has a double latch system, or a safety. This is because caboose stoves were largely left unattended, and if you've ever been on an old train, with the side to side motion and bumping around, it would be too easy to have a simple door catch spring open and spill forth hot coals on the floor of the train. The rocking motion of the train brings up my next point, these stoves did not have legs, but were built to be directly bolted to the floor. A stove with 12" legs sitting on the floor of a moving railroad car would simply fall over before it got out of the rail yard or depot. And finally, in almost all cases, the stoves had a Lipped Top, a solid ring of cast iron above the top cook surface, usually 1" or more, to keep the coffee pot or pan of chili from sliding off while under way. Also, in almost all cases, they were coal stoves, as that is what the train's locomotive was burning. Coal must have draft from the bottom of the fire, thus it has to have draft controls below the firebox. Note that literally thousands of these Original stoves where cannibalized for their cast iron content during our country's War Efforts,

Three Types of Pot Belly Stoves Used in the Past Times

There are at least three famous types of pot belly stove used in the past time. The first type is called Monica. It was made by the Union Stove Works Company in the year 1890-1900. It has a dual wood-loading system where the wood can be loaded from the top or the front in a traditional fashion by lifting the cook lid. This type is tall, 52 inches. It is the most expensive pot belly stove because of its good function and the size it possesses.

The second type is Estate Smoke Consumer. This kind of pot belly stove is able to get up and go. It is the wood stove that was originally made by the Estate Stove Company between 1900 until 1920. This kind of stove was usually used in the trains. Furthermore, it is also used to heat up meals or a pot of coffee. The features of this type are wide and flat bottom which provides a stable base when the trip turned bumpy.

The last pot belly stove is Station Agent #14. It is used by the rail travelers to pass the time. It is designed and used primarily to heat rail stations, too, between 1800 and 1900. This type of stove stands almost 4 feet tall. It sparkles with some nickels that are mostly seen on pot belly stove. It is even held up by three decorative legs. What makes it awesome also is that it has a nickel emblem above the wood loading door. It features a large cook lid on the stove’s top.

and finally since we mentioned the Station agent stove did you know that the name "Station Wagon" came from the carriages that hung around railroad stations to carry people and luggage to hotels etc.  The carriages were originally called "Depot hacks" (the hackney carriage was an old name for taxis).  Over time they went from being called hacks to being called "carryalls" or "suburbans" or "station wagons",  Eventually when gasoline powered vehicles came along and replaced the horse drawn ones, Detroit decided to call the big family carryall vehicles a "station wagon." 

1929 Delmar MD High School Chorus

1929 Gypsy Chorus "Miss Blue Bonnet"
Front Row - Nadine Hudson, Frances McGuiness
Back Row; Thelma Powell, Irene Parsons, Catherine Elliott, Pauline Small, Jeannette Walls, Virginia Hudson

Boxing Before WW2

Prior to World War 2 and after WW2 there was an active boxing league on Delmarva.  There were several rings including one in Delmar, others in Ocean City and Salisbury.  Mostly they would have one or two eight round matches followed by some 4 and 3 round matches, usually the local men fought the 3 and 4 round matches.  It is hard to identify a particular boxer since they frequently used a ring name such as "Kid" before their last name.  One boxer from Delmar in the pre WW2 boxing rings was Daly Williams.  I can only assume Daly was a ring name as I can't find any Williams in Delmar with the first name Daly.  There was a number of well known boxers with the last name of Daly, Dan Daly comes to mind as he fought as a boxer and died in 1930.    Anyway Daly Williams seem to stay on the local circuit for a while before vanishing after about 1935.

Other boxers of the pre WW2 era were; Kid Lewis-Chincoteague, Kid Lloyd-New Church, Kid Beebe-Chincoteague, Kid Mister-Crisfield, Kid McGovern-Parksley, Kid Crawford-Princess Anne, Kid Richie-Salisbury, Bob Williams- Cordova, Jack Raymond-Hebron, Freddy Jackson-Siloam, Jack Stanley-Crisfield, Chick Finney-Pocomoke, Bob Gadsby-Salisbury, Killer Crawford-Princess Anne, Nuke Fisher-Crisfield, Therm Bradford-Chincoteague, Ben Parson- Berlin, Bob Dennis-Powellville, Crowley Mears-Eastville, and Big Boy Smith-Princess Anne.

General trivia

ambulances are called that because in the old days they had amber-colored lanterns hung on poles at the back to signal their presence. people started calling them “amber-lamp carriages” in the late 1800s and over the years it was shortened to ambulance.

Railroad trivia

In the early 1900s it was not unusual to use a piece of railroad track as a main support beam in a house.

Runs In The Family

From The Morning News 28 Aug 1913
Frederick Edwin Pote (1852-1913) died from a train accident. He was born in Maine.  He married Lavenia (Lorenia) M. Robinson (1858-1933) in 1877. His son was Mitchell Monroe Pote.  The four daughters were; Lillie Mae, Jennie Grace, Nellie, Emma, . His son, M. Monroe Pote, seven years before had a leg cut off in a train accident. another child died in 1890 from burns.

Mitchell Monroe Pote was born May 1, 1883 to Fred and Lorenia Pote.  Monroe Pote would marry Lorena Blizzard on March 14 1906.  Monroe worked for the railroad as a telegraph operator.  Monroe and Lorena had as children; Edwin, Richard, Robert and Grace.

From The Evening Journal 06 Apr 1906

1 Apr 7 1906 From the Courier Salisbury MD

Monroe continued to work for the railroad but he was active in the baseball teams in Delmar.   As such Pote field over at Gordy Park is named after him.

the original Little League field, at one time it had a sign naming it 'Pote Memorial Field.' This field was named for Monroe Pote in 1958. Known as Mr. Baseball, Monroe Pote was one of those Town Citizens who was active in youth sports. He organized a Maryland High School base ball team in 1922 and also coached a soccer team. He was a High school coach (Maryland School)until about 1930. In 1932 he organized a boy scout baseball team. He was active in baseball and sports up until his death in the 1949.

Mr. Pote worked for the Railroad and had lost a leg in an accident on the railroad. He continued to work for the railroad and after working the midnight shift would grab some sleep and than be at the athletic fields by the time school was out to coach and support the teams. In the 1930's there was not much financial support for the ball teams. The Maryland school principal would ask the team each year if they wanted a one ball and two bats or two balls and one bat for the season. Mr. Pote would take his personal earning and supplement the team's equipment.

Obed W. Marvel 1903

Head Cut Off By Car Wheels

Princess Anne, Md.,  Nov 27 - Olia W. Marvel, of Delmar, Md., was instantly killed this morning in Princess Anne by being run over by passenger train No. 92 of the New York Philadelphia, and Norfolk Railway.  He was a brakeman on the New York Philadelphia, and Norfolk Railway, and when last seen alive was coupling a freight car  which had been shifted to a side track by his train at 7 o'clock this morning at Princess Anne.  When found his head was severed from his body and was lying on the outside of the track .  His body was between the track.  A coroners inquest was held before Justice Samuel H. Colonna and returned a verdict that the deceased came to death by accidentally falling between the cars.  Marvel was 35 years old and is survived by a widow and two children.

Above from the Baltimore Sun 28 Nov 1903

Obed W. Marvel (1866-1903) was the son of Levin James Marvel (1833-1897) and Sarah A. Crockett (1832- ).  He had first married Virginia Lee Johnson (1863-1893).  After her death he married Cora E. Truitt (1877- )  in 1897.  She was from Crisfield.  They had two children; Arva Anna Luce Marvel (1898- ) and Levin T. Marvel (1902-1904).  Arva l. Marvel would become a Delaware nurse in 1919, and work and live in Haverstraw NY .  She would die in 1965,  She never married. She was one of five students would graduated in 1916 from the Delmar Delaware high School.  

from Daily Times 02 Jan 1965

John Elliott and John T. Hadder 1910

Delmar, Md. Jan 6 - John Elliott, aged 30 years, was decapitated and John T. Hadder, 32 years old, was seriously injured, having both legs mangled and his skull broken by being struck by a trainin the Delmar yard of the Pennsylvania Railroad last evening.  The men were mill employes and were returning to work, and while crossing the tracks to reach their homes they failed to see the approaching train.  Hadder as taken to Salisbury Hospital.

above from Baltimore Sun -  7 Jan 910

This accident is a continuation of the bad fortune that befell this branch of the Hadder family.  John Henry Elliott was married to Florence Hadder (1888-1972).  John T. Hadder was called Delonza (Lonnie) Thomas Hadder who was Florence's brother. John (Lonnie) would die the next day from the accident.  Both men worked in the box factory in East Delmar. Lonnie and Florence's father was Tom Hadder who died a horrible death in a sawmill in North Carolina.  After his death his wife Addie Mills Hadder came back to the Laurel area with the children.  Death fell on either them or their husband or wives over the next ten years. Florence remarried in 1913 to Edward T. Conaway who would died in 1940, a few days before Christmas, when mine props he was loading on a railcar in Delmar rolled off and crushed him. Unable to support them Florence would put her children out to different family members to raise.   John Elliott and Florence had one son Loron E. Elliott (1910-1970) who would be born in February of 1910 a month after his death.

Thomas Hodgson - 1894

Baltimore, May 6 - Thomas Hodgsons, of Delmar, Md., aged 32 years, made two attempts to end his life last night, in the second of which he was successful.  He boarded the Maryland Steamboat Company steamer Enoch Pratt, and shortly after jumped into the dock.  He was fished out, but when the steamer was several miles from the city he again jumped overboard and was drowned.

above from the Philadelia Inquirer 7 May 1894


Thomas J. Hidgson, aged 32 years, of this city, was drowned in Anne Arundel county, Md., just outside of Baltimore, on Wednesday last.  His home is at No. 312 Lomard street.  The body was found on Saturday and was brought to this city yesterday.  He will be buried at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.
Above the Evening Journal Wilmington 15 May 1894


Thomas J. Hodgson (1863-1894) was the son of Richard and Elizabeth Keer Hodgson.  Richard Hodgson was an early hotel manager in Delmar.  In fact at the time (around 1870) he may have had the only hotel on the Delaware side of town.  By 1892 he and his wife and daughter had returned to Wilmington due to the great fire that destroyed Delmar and the hotel.   He would die in 1909 while on a trip to Philadelphia.  His daughter Florence (1867-1927) would remain single and die of heart disease in Wilmington.

Thomas Hodgson had married Ida Florence Bailey of Quantico.  By the time of his death he had fathered two children; Walter Bailey Hodgson (1884-1894)  and Richard Herman Hodgson (1886-1971).  The marriage may not have been a happy one as Ida and children lived with her father Levin E. Bailey.  Walter Hodgson had just died a few weeks before Thomas took his life and perhaps that was a factor in the suicide.   Richard went on to become a well known real estate person in Salisbury,  The Salvation Army gym is named after him due to the contribution his widow made in his name.  




AN ALLEGED FORGERYSeptember 23, 1875 The Daily Gazette, a Wilmington Paper

A West Chester man was robbed of a check on which his endorsement is Forged.

An alleged forgery has come to light in Maryland in which the First National Bank of West Chester is interested in the particulars of which the Local News relates as follows:

During the first day of the Agricultural Fair held in our borough, a man named Washington Eastbourne, residing at Russelville, this county, came to West Chester and negotiated a loan with Messrs. Pyle & Brown, bankers for the sum of $180, he receiving a check on the First National Bank for this amount. He did not draw the money, and while here it appears, he made the acquaintance of a very pleasant gentleman, who was endeavoring to operate among the people attending the exhibition in the way of selling some sort of a patient right. Eastbourne and this gentleman who was very childlike and bland, he became quite intimate, and on Tuesday, it is said they left our borough together and betook themselves to Wilmington Delaware. In that city they drank together and got more or less intoxicated and Eastbourne on Tuesday night took lodging in a wagon standing in one of the hotel yards. On the following morning he awoke to find his hat and traveling companion both missing and upon investigating the interior of his pocketbook, the check was also found to be missing and he at once suspected his newly found friend as being the thief.

It appears that the stranger after quitting Wilmington went to Delmar, a place near Maryland line and stopped at a hotel kept by a man named Hodgson and with whom he settled his hotel charges by passing over the check, after first endorsing it in the name of “Washington Eastbunn” – Subsequently the check was endorsed by Mr. Hodgson and given to Adams Express Company for collection, and by the company it was also endorsed and presented to the First national Bank of west Chester, and the money paid to the company.

On the day following Eastbourne advised Messrs Pyle & Brown, of this place of his loss and requested them to stop payment, and the being then in the Express Company’s hands they were forthwith advised by their agent at West Chester to return it or hold it until further orders.

The stranger, who gave his name as Washington Eastbunn, was afterwards arrested at Crisfield, Md. In regard to the check he said:
“I won the check in Wilmington from Washington “Eastbourne’ at a gambling table and brought it down to Delmar and there transferred it to Mr. Hodgson by putting my name on the back of it, which is Washington Eastbunn. I have a right to put my name on anything, the bank cashier should have noticed the spelling.” Eastbunn, as he calls himself but which is not his name, is a tremendous man in size, being greatly over six feet high, he says he was fifteen years a sailor and three years on the police force in the 8th ward in New York City.
He showed the magistrate how he wrote the name “Eastbourne” and his writing was an excellent specimen of beautiful pensmanship.

The bank cashier went down to Delmar, Tuesday in company with Washington Eastbourne to be present at the hearing.

The theft being committed in Delaware an effort will be made to have the trail take place at New Castle instead of in Maryland, that place being the choice of those interested.




Note: In 1859 Kendall B. Hearn built a Hotel in Delmar. After he died it changed hands a number of times with one of the owners being Richard Hodgson. The Hotel burn in the great Fire of 1892.

Asbury Mills

Asbury Mills, a brakeman on a N. Y. P. & N. freight train, was throwing a switch at Bloxom Station, when his foot got wedged in a frog.  Before he could pull himself loose the train back in upon him and crushed both legs.  His death is expected.
above from 09 Jan 1894 Harrisburg Telegraph

Caboose Examples

Neither picture is of the Delmar caboose but I thought the top one of the freight caboose was interesting

and the cutout drawing below is similar to the inside of the Delmar Caboose

1949 Opening of the New Wm Freihofer Bakery in Delmar

1937 May Queen Delmar Delaware High School

Maryland State Board of Motion Picture Censors

For those who were born before 1970 and watched a movie in Maryland you will recognize the above seal of approval photo as it was always shown before the start of a movie.  From 1916 to 1981 Maryland censored all movies shown in the state.  Some not suitable were rejected and not legally shown in the state, other ones not suitable were sent back to the movie company with suggestions of which scenes to cut from it and after that was done they could resubmit the movie to the board. A number of people were jailed for showing unapproved movies.  As an example the 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation" was rejected as morally bad and crime-inciting.  Another example was Howard Hughes' "The Outlaw"

The Maryland State Board of Censors was a three-member state agency.  The board was dissolved in 1981. At the time of its disbanding, it was the last state-specific film censorship agency in the United States.

The Maryland State Board of Censors were much like the Blue laws on the Eastern Shore of Maryland -  designed to protect us from ourselves.  To read about blue laws look at this post done in 2010

https://delmarhistoricalandartsociety.blogspot.com/2010/10/living-with-blue-laws.html

LAST STATE BOARD OF CENSORS FADES AWAY AFTER 65 YEARS State Board of Censors

By BEN A. FRANKLIN, Special to the New York Times

Published: June 29, 1981

BALTIMORE, June 27— The last picture show came before the Maryland State Board of Censors this week. It passed. The three-member board got a free preview of ''The Great Muppet Caper'' (rated G), unanimously gave it a license to be exhibited in the Free State of Maryland and then darkened the house - closing their private screening room here for the last time. They held a coffee-and-cookies reception, exchanged gifts and made jokes designed to lighten the aura of doom that surrounded the last meeting of the country's only state movie censorship board.

One of the partiers was Mary Avara, the 71-year-old senior censor. She has spent 21 years filtering smut from the silver screen here and has been the board's most vigorous defender.

A grandmother of nine and a former Baltimore bail bondsman with relatives in practically every branch of city, county and state government, Mrs. Avara is unabashedly a civic ''character.'' She said that she would forgo the $4,500-a-year censor's stipend and ''serve free, if anyone wants to introduce legisation to bring this board back.'' 'Lies' About Stag Parties

Few do, despite what Mrs. Avara called ''made-up lies'' about ''stag parties'' in the screening room to introduce Maryland lawmakers to the world of filmic smut.

Making an unsuccessful defense of continued movie censorship before a committee of the Maryland legislature earlier this year, Mrs. Avara - ''Joan of Arc'' to her antipornography allies - had established her credentials as an expert witness by noting that she had ''looked at more naked bodies than 50,000 doctors.''

But efforts to revive the censor board, expiring under a threeyear-old ''sunset law'' designed to purge useless state agencies, died in the State Senate last March by a vote of 25 to 20. Governor Harry R. Hughes, a Democrat - and, as Mrs. Avara noted this week, more in astonishment than outrage, ''a good Catholic'' - had said he would veto any revival measure, in any case.

The board was costing nearly $100,000 a year, while motion picture license fees were bringing in only about $12,000. Going Against the Tide

In large part through Mrs. Avara's defensive efforts, the Maryland board, which was founded in 1916, has lasted through the decades of the 1960's and 1970's, when the censoring authorities in other states were bowing to Supreme Court decisions that so restricted the definition of obscenity that censorship became a losing game. The censors here have not exactly prevailed, either. Last year the Maryland board reviewed some 500 films; it rejected only six.

Nevertheless, the censors here perceived that they had power. For example, about 600 X-rated titles that had been shown in censorless Washington, were never submitted to the Maryland board for licenses and probable rejection.

In Maryland, unlicensed hard-core movie pornoraphy has continued to be available in the ''adult'' sex shops that line this ciy's regionally famous tenderloin, ''The Block,'' a neon strip of go-go bars and pornographic book stores along East Baltimore Street. It is visible from the board's eighth-floor office on Calvert Street.

With its 13 patronage-hired inspectors, the board made a few recent cases against the quarter-in-the-slot peep show violators. But the result usually was drawn-out litigation. Warnings About Morals Thursday, at their final meeting, the outgoing board members issued dire forecasts for what will happen to the morals of Maryland, and indeed the nation, without their vigilance and with the advent of a booming new industry of cable television and video cassette pornography.

''In the demise of this body,'' said Martha S. Wright, a 52-yearold civic activist ending her second term as a censor, ''America has gone from one nation under God, from a righteous nation. It's just another step toward our becoming lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of our fellow man. America is degraded. I am sorry for the United States and for Maryland''.

Earlier this year Mrs. Avara reported to the State Legislature, where she has been known over the years for her cool recitals of explicit and deviant sex, that the job had taken its toll on her, too.

''One of our pictures had a naked woman playing with eels,'' she testified, ''and then she cooked them and ate them. I had to stop eating a lot of food because of what they do with it in these movies.''

Mrs. Avara's failure, at last, to arouse indignation at the Maryland statehouse was praised by Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. At his headquarters in Washington, Mr. Valenti said: ''This removes a staining blot on the First Amendment to the Constitution. It makes Maryland, the fabled Free State, a free state at last, along with the other 49.''

Mr, Valenti said that the motion picture industry's voluntary rating system, which since 1968 has labeled films ''general,'' ''parental guidance'' and ''restricted,'' would now have increased importance.

The Circle Theater Annapolis Md 1929

The Arcade Theater Salisbury Maryland 1929

1962 Ad for Grant lewis Barber Shop

The One-Legged Man and The Honeysuckle Rose Restaurant

George Henry Price, in 1946, came to his end.  He was living on East Street when his house was engulfed in fire.  By the time the fire department arrived it was too late to save him.  His body was later found on the floor.  Mr. Woodrow Horseman of West Street had stopped by the house to pick Mr. Price up as he worked for him at the Honeysuckle Rose restaurant and rooming house in Salisbury, saw the fire tried to save him, but the house was to engulfed in flames to do anything.

George Price was well known in Delmar as he rode a bicycle and you don't often see a one-legged man riding a bicycle.  He constantly challenged the white boys to bicycle races and usually won.

In 1927 Mr. Price was arrested for stealing chickens from Mrs. Polly A. Culver and from Mr. Gardner L. Hastings.  He was fined $500 and sent to the Sussex jail. 

In 1929, Mr. Price tried to steal chickens from Mr. Vincent Walls who lived west of Delmar on the Maryland side of the state line.  He had just recently been released from the New Castle workhouse for a charge of larency.  Mr Walls spotted him and fired a shotgun at him.  Mr. Price's leg was hit and so badly mangled from the shotgun blast that the Constable and Mr. Walls had to remove him to the Salisbury hospital.  At the hospital his leg was amputated.

In 1930 he was again arrested for stealing chickens from Mr.  Hughey Pippins, of near Delmar. He was given 18 months in Jail.

Woodrow Horseman (father of Gary Horseman) purchased the Honeysuckle Rose Restaurant and rooming house in 1946 from John Midkiff (related to Dale Midkiff the actor).  The restaurant was located at Lake and Isabella street in Salisbury.  Gary Horseman use to ride his pony from Delmar down to the restaurant after school to work in it with his father.  The restaurant and rooming house had several violent scenes in it, some of which Woodrow Horseman was involved in.  Woodrow Horseman was related to Vincent Walls, the man that shot George Price.   There is also a Wells - Midkiff connection but I do not know how much that influenced the purchase of the restaurant.  By 1951 the restaurant had been sold to William Robinson

You Will Miss It When It's Gone

One of items I keep hearing from Delmar natives is how they wish the railroad station was still in town to be used as a historical building.  Back in the day, the Pennsylvania railroad offered the building to "the town of Delmar" for one dollar.  "The town" didn't want it so the Railroad tore it down.   The people have always blamed "the Town" but in truth a town is it's residents and no one nor no group came forward and said lets keep the building.

Over in Lewes something close to it is happening.  The town of Lewes is trying to keep a small section of track in town to help with the 148 year history of the railroad in Lewes.  No group has come forward to help with this project so the town has decided there is not interest in the tracks  and has placed this project on a one year deadline for some group to come forward and take it over.

read about in the cape gazette

http://www.capegazette.com/article/lewes-seeks-group-preserve-railroad-tracks/149093#.Wn5JtBiO6-A.facebook

Rally Day in Delmar - 1923

The members of the Ku Klux Klan  are planning a big demonstration for Monday evening, to be held on a large field on the outskirt of town.  Dr. J. H. Hawkins, who is coming here for the Rally day services of the M. P. Church will remain for the occasion. 

Refreshments will be served to those who attend by the ladies of the M. P. Church.

above from The Morning News (Wilmington) 1 Nov 1923

1928 Univ of Maryland Yearbook Photo of Frances Fooks Freeny

Frances was the daughter of Edwin (Ned) and Lelah Freeny.  She would marry a marine, Joseph C. Burger, who would retire a Brig. General.  Their son, Joe Burger, is a life member of the Delmar Historical and Arts Society.

Delmar Maryland Graduates 1935

Charles H. Givans Shoemaker 1929

Delmar, Del  Oct 31 – Delmar’s venerable shoe-maker, Charles Givans was fatally stricken by illness yesterday at noon at his work bench.  Someone, passing by , saw him , noticed that he look particularly and went in.  He found him in an unconscious condition, called a physician and they took him to his home, where he died a few hours later.  Mr. Givans came here many years ago from berlin, learned his trade here and settled.  He is survived by his wife and two children, Miss Violet Givans, of Wilmington, and Charles Givans, of Cape Charles.  Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon from his residence.  Dr. E. H. Dashiell  will officiate and interment will be at the Methodist Episcopal Cemetery.

Above from The Morning News (Wilmington) 01 NOV 1929

Charles H. Givans was the son of Peter Givans and Martha J. Quillen.  He was born in Berlin Maryland in 1859.  In 1880 at age 20 he was a shoemaker in Berlin living with his mother Martha Givans.  His father was Peter Givans who was also a shoemaker.  About 1900 he moved to Delmar and lived on East street.

He married Jessie Priscilla Robinson (1869-1955) daughter of James Robinson and Mary Raynor.  Charles and Jessie had for children:

Charles W. Givans ( 1891-1969) worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Cape Charles later retired to Florida where he died.  He married Eunice Dunn.

Minnie Violet Givans (1894 -1913) worked as a switchboard operator in the telephone office in Delmar until she became ill and died in July 1913.

Cleveland Givans (1895 -1917) died at 21 in 1917, he was working in Wilmington for J. T. Mullin and Son.  His death was given as tuberculosis but may have been the Spanish Influenza.

Violette Walls "Givans" (1906-1992) was the daughter of Raymond Robert Walls and Mary Wilson  but was taken to raise by Charles and Jessie.  Violet married Wylie Powhaten Beal (1899-1970) in 1929.  She had graduated Delmar High School in 1924, and Beacom Business school later. She was working as a bookkeeper in Milford.  Mr. Beal was working construction putting in sewer lines in Delmar and meant her.  He was from Scottsville Virginia and that is where they lived.  Violets mother, Jessie, would come to live with them there. Jessie died there. After the death of Wiley, Violet married Marion Hastings in 1973.