When I was a child in the 1960s, the houses there were few and far between and I could walk for miles along the beach and only come across one or two homes, which were mostly vacation homes.
We rented a small cottage, formerly a slave's quarters, that sat on a small bluff overlooking the river. The cottage had a simple screened-in porch that ran across the front of it, which housed a kitchen table (where else would you want to eat but where you could chew and watch the river traffic?), a few chairs and an old trundle bed that we used as a couch.
At first there was just one bedroom and an old kitchen with a sink that went "glub, glub, glub," after you ran water in it and a chimney covered with an old tin plate to keep the birds out, along with the requisite mice that appeared after we went to bed.
Eventually, another bedroom and bathroom was added to the cottage, which we thought was wonderful since none of us enjoyed traisping to the outhouse that sat right next to the cornfield and was usually occupied by a few spiders and occasionally a nasty looking snake.
It wasn't fancy, it wasn't the Ritz, it was simply "the cabin" as we called it and on "the river" as we called the place where we spent most of the first 18 summers of my life.
Down the hill and across a small creek from us was Dun Roamin' a lovely, yellow-sided ranch house that was the retirement home of Lee and Earlene Bizzell. They were at river level, but set back from the beach by at least 200 yards. They were quite the characters and will be featured in their own blog one day soon.
Their house was situated near a small rise which, once climbed, gave way to a huge property containing a large plantation home with many outbuildings standing tall and proud, along with beautiful gardens, which overlooked the river near a high bluff. The house was called Moreland and was surely a sight to see if you were lucky enough to be out on the river and could see it in its full glory.
Behind our cottage was acre after acre of cornfields, which also sloped down in front of us to a bluff on which the cabin sat high above the water. A one lane dirt road wound down to the cabin for about a mile from a narrow country road that came in off the highway one could take to Fredericksburg or to the Harry M. Nice bridge that connected Maryland to Virginia. You could always tell when company was coming by the spray of dirt rising above the car along the road.
At the top of the dirt road were two large homes. One, a huge, old farmhouse sat facing the river with spectacular views from the porch and front parlor rooms. Sloping down in front of it was more corn and sometimes livestock. Dear friends of ours, Charlottie and Bill Burroughs owned the farmhouse and it was from them that we rented our cottage for a month every summer.
Aunt Lottie, as we called her, was ancient as I remember her, indeed, she was born well before the turn of the 20th century, and was good-natured, kind and loving, possessed of lots of white curly hair, a southern accent that charmed me with every word and someone I loved dearly.
Uncle Bill, her husband, was just as kind and good-natured, and of the same age. He was always puttering around the farmhouse, mowing the property or driving down to the river to chat with us. I adored him.
Across the road from them stood the beautiful manor house, Chatterton, built around the end of the 18th/early 19th century and a plantation home in the truest sense. It was made of pure white brick with black shutters and an enormous front porch with large pillers and a lovely, lush green lawn that offered sweeping views of the gorgeous Potomac River 1 mile down in front of the house.
There were always half a dozen horses grazing in the field, along with cows and sometimes deer in the early morning or evening.
Chatterton was then owned by Major General Donald Dawson, best remembered as the presidential aide to Harry S. Truman, who marshaled the famous whistle stop campaign of Truman's during the 1948 presidential bid.
But it wasn't Dawson who caught my interest and eye, it was his wife, the retired actress Ilona Massey.
You see, back in the day it was my dream to become a famous actress and the closest I could get to that goal was to dream about some day meeting Ilona Massey Dawson.
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| Actress Ilona Massey |
The couple had bought the home at auction in the early 1960s from the wife of the previous owner, Frank Brooks Bielaski.
Bielaski, who died April 4, 1961, had been a former director in the OSS during WWII and was in civilian intelligence work at the time of his death. He had spent 18 years restoring Chatterton to its original glory with his wife, Angelique.
Bielaski, no stranger to intelligence work, was also the brother of A. Bruce Bielaski, the first director of the FBI, and had thoroughly researched Chatterton's original records. He knew the origin of every brick that went into the building of the beautiful manor house, as well as the property's interesting history.
It was Bielaski's wife, Angelique, who engineered the auction of Chatterton after his death, which interestingly, ended up being sold to Dawson – another major player during WWII.
Massey and Dawson, who worked at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., lived in the city during the week and came to Chatterton on the weekends, with the intention of living there full time once Dawson retired.
You knew when the couple were in residence because the American flag would be raised and flapping in the wind out in front of the house.
Massey, a Hungarian born actress (June 16, 1910) who was raised in abject poverty, had worked hard to pull herself out of the poorhouse and come to the U.S. to sing her way to stardom.
She only appeared in 22 movies and despite her beautiful singing talents, was best known for her role as Madame Egelichi in the Marx Brothers film, "Love Happy." However, Miss Massey began her Hollywood career with the famous Nelson Eddy, with whom she proved her outstanding singing voice by performing several duets with the singer.
Married three times before meeting General Dawson, lovestruck Ilona called him "my general" and it was clear that the fourth time was a charm for Ilona.
Ilona Massey died Aug. 20, 1974 from lung cancer, But not before I got to meet her face-to-face.
But ... that's a story for another day.
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