Dear CSM,
A couple of weeks ago after CSM was delivered to the Rising Sun library, I saw that wonderful story about Mr. and Mrs. Prigel. He was my husband’s Vocational-Agriculture teacher at RSHS, and she was my sixth grade teacher. What a wonderful couple!

She lined all us sixth graders up (after having us save up a little money), marched us up to the National Bank of Rising Sun, and had us all open our own savings accounts. (This was while the elementary school and the high school were where the Middle School is now.) What a wonderful thing to do for a bunch of kids who had no idea about savings accounts back in 1954.

The Prigels did lots of wonderful things for the Rising Sun community before they left this end of the county. Your article on the Balderstons was also interesting. I grew up near Colora, and on Saturdays in the fall we could earn ten cents a bushel picking up apples at Balderston’s orchard. One Saturday I picked up 50 bushels, talked my mother into taking me to Jay Dee’s store in Oxford, took my five dollars and bought a beautiful pair of red high-heeled shoes--my first high heels! How proud I was! My cousin Vivian could always pick up more than I–she was older and faster. We had great fun doing that little job and looked forward to apple season each year. I can’t remember what they did with the “drops” (that’s what they called those apples); I am sure they weren’t wasted.

Then you had an article about Miss Kit Kirk … what a neat lady! We used to go to Ashby’s, sit at the fountain and get the absolute best fountain cokes and sundaes ever! They had all their sundae toppings in stainless steel containers with cute little ladles. I always ordered a butterscotch sundae with marshmallow sauce and, of course, wet nuts. (Some things you never forget!) If you needed a nice gift back then, you went to Ashby’s, where they had a lovely selection of pretty serving dishes and jewelry. They wrapped the gifts for you, too.

Anyway, thanks for your wonderful magazine! We read it cover to cover, and when the members of the Class of 1960 of Rising Sun High School get together for breakfast (including Ruby Gordon, Pat Coale, Bertie May) we discuss whatever you may have had in the last issue.

Take care and keep up the great work!
Joan Van Dyke
Rising Sun, Maryland

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Dear CSM,
Thank you so much for the Spotlight on Jim and Midge Prigel. Jim Prigel was not only an ‘Ag’ teacher at Calvert and Rising Sun High Schools, he was also the coach for the girls’ sports teams. The only Girls’ sports played in the 40s and 50s were field ball in the fall, basketball in the winter, and softball in the spring. I played every one of them from 7th grade through 10th grade at Calvert, then 11th and 12th grades at Rising Sun, with Mr. Prigel as my coach. He was a great coach, encouraging and teaching at all times. We all had confidence in his knowledge of the sport of the season.

It was not until our 50th class reunion in 2003 that he told me that it was Midge who was really our basketball coach. It seems that when he was asked to coach girls’ basketball at Calvert, he had to ask her to teach him the plays at home so he could then teach them to us at school. I knew he was a strong fastball pitcher in softball but had never seen him pitch until one rainy day at Rising Sun. We couldn’t practice on the field so we went into the gym. For a few minutes, I had the honor of playing catcher to his fastball. I don’t remember how many pitches he threw. I do remember the smack in my glove and the sore hand I had for a short while afterward.

Though I didn’t have any classroom instruction from Mr. Prigel, I did learn a great deal about sportsmanship, athleticism, and team effort, and I appreciate those lessons to this day.

Isabelle Marshall
Aberdeen, Maryland

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Awesome… just so awesome!

It just seems so long between your magazines. I keep looking for it in my mail each day when it gets close to the time for us to receive it. No matter what I am doing it waits until I can sit for a while to go through it scanning every page. I enjoy the puzzle page so very much for many reasons. Puzzles of all kinds have been my way of relaxing for years. I look forward to the puzzles in your magazine as they take me to places I know quite well, and from the folks I know and love so very much.

Auntie Jeanne Kennedy
Oxford, Pennsylvania

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Dear CSM,
We became aware of Cecil Soil Magazine through a friend that lives in Colora, MD at a gathering (we’re all sailors out of Havre de Grace and Middle River, MD). We found our latest copy at the Grist Mill in Perryville, MD. We had gone to the Grist Mill because my mother had won an award from the Perryville Library for reading books at a substantial pace and rating them. We love the articles that illustrate what is available in Cecil County and that give us a feeling of community. Our lives have been enriched by knowing what is going on in our rapidly changing county and we hope it does not change too much.

Bill Voss
Perryville, Maryland

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Dear Mr. Belote,
I talked to Carol a couple of days ago, requesting all of your magazines up to date. I have Winter 2005 and 2006 that a friend sent me, and am so pleased with them that I would like to collect them all. I am the person that sent you the article about my brother R. Holt Dean, Jr. and the picture that you wrote and told me will be in the winter edition 2006.

I have lived in the Bel Air area since l963, but keep in close touch with friends around Elkton where I grew up, and have many sentiments about the area. My mother grew up in the Chesapeake City area and my father in Elkton. I love Chesapeake City, and have dreams of living there someday, but really have doubts that it will ever be. I am 74 and my husband 73, and our roots are pretty much here now, with our friends, church and activities. We own a motor home, and travel with a camping club in the summer and go to Florida in the winter for about six weeks. We are neighbors and friends of Johnny Lough who is a long time Rising Sun resident, but now lives here. On occasion we come over to Rising Sun to the new Methodist Church with he and his wife. It is a lovely church.

As time moves on, I will try to get together some more pictures of my brother and our family and maybe another article or two of his military experiences.

Sincerely,
Norma D. Griffin
Bel Air, Maryland

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Dear Ed,
Thanks so much for doing the story of our Honor Guard in your Summer 2006 issue of Cecil Soil Magazine. We are a proud group that carries out the final wishes of our Veterans by providing Full Military Honors at their funerals. Your article and pictures were very informative of what we do. Keep up the good work and thanks for spending so much time with us.

Thank You,
Riley Bennett
Honor Guard Commander,
American Legion Mason Dixon Post 194

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To the Publisher of CSM,
I would like to thank you very much for your wonderful article and pictures in the Summer 2006 edition on Mason-Dixon Post 194, The American Legion Honor Guard. I, too, am proud to be among the membership rolls and only too happy to be part of the team that pays these final tributes to our nations veterans. They not only earned it with their sacrifices, but deserve this respect – it is the least we can do. Thank you again for this fine article.

PNCS Bob W. McMahon, USN (Ret)
Nottingham, Pennsylvania

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Dear CSM,
A very nice magazine. I was in the Honor Guard 42 years and a member of the Post for 61 years.
Ralph “Bud” Reed
Rising Sun, Maryland

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Dear Cecil Soil Magazine,
I do enjoy your magazine very much. I enjoy reading about people around Cecil County. My daughter and I try to be first to do the CSM puzzle.

Four of us girls at age 18 came up to Elkton and got jobs at the Aerial Plant in Elkton in 1950 and made hand grenades. We enjoyed working there; now, all of a sudden we are in our 70s. Thanks for printing my picture with my great-granddaughter on your Grand Mom’s Grandest page. Thank you again for the magazine. It is enjoyable to read. My last grandson graduated June 6th – also your birthday, Mr. Belote. Hope it was a Happy Birthday & Best Wishes.

Viola Holman
Rising Sun, Maryland

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Dear CSM,
Recently saw your magazine for the first time. A friend passed it on to me for the article on Cecil County trains. I read the whole magazine and loved it all, but a picture from a Michelle Ward and Helen Ward got my attention the most. I am a representative of the Lt. Col. Robert H. Archer Camp #2013, Sons of Confederate Veterans, based in Havre de Grace, Harford County. Our membership is comprised of Harford and Cecil County members and part of our goals is to find the graves of those Confederate Soldiers in Harford and Cecil Counties and pay respect to them and their family descendants when they can be found. James D. Alexander is on our list of those to find their ancestors.

I tried the only Helen Ward that I could find in the Cecil phone directory. She was in Chesapeake City but alas it was not the right lady. Perhaps with their permission, of course, you could forward their address or phone number or email to me so that I could talk to them about what we would like to do for their ancestors. We have others in Cecil County that we are trying to locate as well. We are deeply interested in the history and the people of Cecil County and your excellent magazine is a great source for the local people.

My name is Barry Lemly and if you need a reference you may inquire of Miss Erica Quesenbery, curator of the Paw Paw Museum in Port Deposit, or Mrs. Kim Flayhart. I also belong to a group of reenactors that are portraying Snow’s Battery (Union) that originated from Port Deposit, as I am interested in both sides of the story in Cecil County. Please help if you can and know that I would appreciate it. Heritage Not Hate, we all can learn from it. Thank you for your time.

Barry Lemly,
Darlington, Maryland

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Dear Mr. Belote,
I picked up a copy of your Spring 2006 issue because of my deep love of horses and all things equestrian. But instead, found “A Look Back With Dixon”, Cecil Scrapbook, “Kit Kirk: A Living Window into the County’s Past” and the article about old time one room schools very interesting. It makes me melancholy and just a little sad that I didn’t live back then.

It seems Rising Sun with its train station, supermarket, theatre and daily newspaper was its own self-contained little city. My how times change and not for the better. I have heard from oldsters who have lived their entire lives in Cecil County – and elsewhere – that the generation coming of age just prior to World War II saw the best of times in America.

I don’t know whether it was the private automobile becoming popular following that conflict which wrecked public transit and set America on the path of isolation it now follows, or the TV invading every home that turned the U.S.A. into the nation of couch potatoes it is now. It seems everything is dying around us now, so I wonder if people like Ms. Kirk didn’t see the last of a living, vital nation-state.

Joanne Parker
Elkton, Maryland