Cooperative Living March/April 2017 - 34

continued from pg. 30
believes there was a time the town could
have been more proactive in keeping the
hospital at its current location.
" There were some grants available that
could have helped provide a wastewater
treatment plant for the hospital, but we
didn't pursue them aggressively enough, "
he believes. " They might have stayed if
we had not been so conservative. I think
the hospital leaving will not only affect
Nassawadox, but the entire county. It is
Northampton's second-largest employer. "
NASSAWADOX TREASURES
Although kids might not choose sides
and play pick-up games like they did a
generation or two ago, more than 800 youth
play organized baseball, softball, soccer,
football and volleyball at Randy Custis
Memorial Park, a 31-acre complex directly
behind the Northampton Fire and Rescue
station in the town limits.
The park was the dream of Randy Custis'
parents, Phil and Barbara, after their son was
killed by a drunk driver at age 9 in 1978.
Today, volunteer coaches spend countless
hours working with youth, maybe none
more than John Gorman, who coaches
LAND BETWEEN
TWO WATERS
N A S S A W A D O X , V I R G I N I A
soccer at the youth level and also led the
county high-school soccer team to the state
championship game last year.
Tyler Webb, a Nassawadox native and
a baseball player who got his start in T-ball
at the park, is now on the Pittsburgh
Pirates' major league roster.
Just on the outskirts of Nassawadox is
Brownsville, a historic farm that remained
in the Upshur family from 1652 to 1978,
when the Nature Conservancy purchased
the 1,000-acre property as the headquarters
for the Virginia Coast Reserve, which
includes 14 undeveloped barrier islands
along the coast of Virginia's Eastern Shore.
The islands serve to protect the mainland
from storms; they encompass over 40,000
acres of pristine salt marshes, vast tidal
mudflats, shallow bays and productive
forest uplands. It is the longest expanse
of coastal wilderness remaining on the
eastern seaboard of the United States.
Another treasure for Nassawadox is
Northampton Free Library, a branch
of Eastern Shore Public Library that
provides residents an accessible place
to learn, meet and pursue a variety of
activities. Among the leading advocates
for building the Nassawadox branch,
which opened in 2006, were noted
husband and wife authors David Poyer
and Lenore Hart Poyer.
As town historian Hallett notes, the
future is not so easy to predict. One
glimpse into Nassawadox's past is a
YouTube video of the James E. Douglas
home movies from 1939-'41 that shows the
busy nature of the town when the railroad
was active and there were car dealerships,
a bank and grocery stores in Nassawadox.
Whatever the future of Nassawadox,
about to begin an era without the hospital
in town for the first time in almost a
century, its leaders appear to be resilient
and looking to make the best of whatever
lies ahead. 
32 | Cooperative Living | March-April 2017
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