On May 10 the Maryland State Board of Public Works approved $495,000 in Open Space funds to be paid to the Harford County Department of Parks and Recreation for acquisition of the Gertrude E. Parks property from the Harford Land Trust.
 
The Trust had acquired the property from Mrs. Parks in November 2002 to hold until a means could be found to preserve its 45-acres of woodland, wetlands and quality farmland. The Open Space grant will cover both the purchase price of the property and some of the Trust's accompanying administrative and legal expenses.
 

The former Parks property lies along Willoughby Beach Road in the Edgewood area. It adjoins Otter Point Creek in the Winters Run watershed emptying into Bush River. Much of it is in the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area within 1,000 feet of tidal waters. It is also in the heart of an area of intensive and continuing development.   GERTRUDE E. PARKS lived on the family farm on Willoughby Beach Road until a series of strokes brought her to Brightview Assisted Living in Bel Air. "I always thought I would like to do that," she said of the sale of her inherited share to the property to HLT. "I opposed all the building. When it was time to do something I didn't want it to be a mass of homes."

Photo: Harford Land Trust

 
GERTRUDE E. PARKS lived on the family farm on Willoughby Beach Road until a series of strokes brought her to Brightview Assisted Living in Bel Air. "I always thought I would like to do that," she said of the sale of her inherited share to the property to HLT. "I opposed all the building. When it was time to do something I didn't want it to be a mass of homes."
 
What is now an area of intense urban development was all farmland when Gertrude Parks was growing up. The Welzenbach farm had been in the family since back in the 1800's. Theirs was a dairy operation with about 30 Guernsey cows and the crops that supported them. She worked on the farm along with the whole family. They had to milk by hand then, twice a day. A horse, not a tractor, pulled the plow.
 
Edgewood Dairy, they called their operation. They bottled their milk. It was raw milk then before pasteurization was a common practice. They sold it at "the Post," as they then called the army base at Edgewood. Among her memorabilia at her rooms at Brightview Mrs. Parks has a half pint Edgewood Dairy bottle.
 
In what was then an isolated part of the county, getting through high school required some initiative for the young people on the farms there. Mrs. Parks wanted the commercial or secretarial courses offered at Bel Air but not available at the closer Post Road High School. To achieve this her mother had to arrange each year a complex series of shared rides. The result of these efforts was the training that led to jobs on "the Post" where she worked for 18 ½ years.
 
She met her husband, Enoch, when he was in the service on the Post and they built a home on a portion of the farm. She has been a widow for 20 years but continued to live in her farm home. Her father died in 1970 and her mother and brother continued to work the farm but it was "a struggle," she said. Her brother worked at other jobs to keep it going but they eventually sold the herd. It is her share of the property that will now be protected as open space.
 
Her memories of farm life are warm and clear, but brightest of all are her recollections of going out on the river with an uncle who was a commercial fisherman. When he would pull in his nets the fish would fill his boat like the description of the boats of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, she said. "There were all kinds of fish, perch and bass---so many fish, so many kinds of fish." She gazed into the past with visible pleasure.
 
>>> Project: Gertrude E. Parks Property