The Kids return to Dickeyville….

Dickeyville Kids Reunion, gathered at Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church, in October 2017 © Sheridan Jones McCrae

By Sheridan Jones McCrae

**This year the village website experienced a major redesign which included some, but not all, content being transferred from the old site. As a way to preserve and highlight several favorite news updates, I’m reconstructing some prior posts for our newer residents. Below is a ‘new’ version about a fantastic event from a few years back.

In 2017, the “Dickeyville Kids” returned to their old haunts. The historic village of Dickeyville in Baltimore was the gathering point for approximately 40 previous denizens, now senior citizens, to rekindle cherished memories over lunch, laughter, and a real life stroll down memory lane.

“We were friends, acquaintances, baby-sitters, and babies that had sitters, sons, daughters, siblings, and friends. Our memories extend from Victory Gardens by the Dam in the 1940’s to the upheaval of the 1960’s and even beyond. Within this little valley, on the Western edge of Baltimore City, we shared a childhood, not without its difficulties, but filled with play, games, ice-skating, sledding, and lazing by the Gwynns Falls. Free in so many ways to grow up, surrounded by a largely untouched natural world.”
Anne McMahan + Elinor Sandless Cecil.

Here you can read the extensive collection of memories about childhoods spent in Dickeyville.

Quotes from previous villagers when reflecting on how Dickeyville influenced their childhoods.

She’s like an old best friend that you know will always be there if you need her.  Joy, magic, love and friendship.  Warm and welcoming.  Dickeyville is part of my heart and soul; you all are part of the fabric that makes it so special and meaningful.  God bless you all and God bless our childhood. Dickeyviile rocks!!  JGW

A place where all our stories began, the place we still call home.  MG

Growing up in Dickeyville was absolutely magical.  We shared our wonder years, our weddings and even some funerals over the years.  Life has separated many of us, however, I am sure that you will all agree that our friends from that time, will be friends forever…even if we haven’t seen each other in 50 years! KGK 

The best of my childhood is Dickeyville.  Dickeyville gave all of us the best time to grow up. LHP 

I am fond of telling folks who ask about my upbringing that Norman Rockwell had nothing on our experiences growing up. RL

Even many years later making adult pilgrimages back to the neighborhood, I would search for, and be gratified to find, the same cobblestones inviting me to walk on them, repeating a comforting ritual.  It is an assurance to me that this special place is still here.  PSM

"I grew up in Dickeyville. And I'd move back there in a minute, if I could ever win an argument with my husband. It's Baltimore's Brigadoon, a place that even some diehard, bread-and-buttered Baltimoreans might not be able to locate on a map. It feels remote and secluded, yet it can't be more than three miles to the interstate. I learned to ice skate there. I also learned how to survive after plunging through thin ice and having to claw my way to the creek bank, my blades trying to find traction in the muddy bottom of the Gwynns Falls. What other life skills do you really need?”  Laura Lippman in an interview with Karl Merton Ferron, The Baltimore Sun

[NB: initials correspond to authors listed in the memoir extracts]

Access the extensive collection of memories here. We hope you enjoy taking this stroll down memory lane with previous residents from various eras. To the current Dickeyville residents - what a wonderful legacy we've inherited from this adventurous bunch of kids!  Let's keep adding to the rich tapestry of memories from families, of all shapes and sizes, in this close-knit community of Dickeyville.  

Acknowledgement

The memoir series was generously provided to the Dickeyville website by Anne McMahan and Elinor Sandless Cecil, coordinators of the 2017 October Dickeyville Kids Reunion. Entries come from The Dickeyville Days – a collection of memoirs from former Dickeyville denizens to celebrate its legacy.

Historic car at the Dickeyville Kids Reunion, Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church, Wetheredsville Rd, October 2017.