Essay: Remembering Summer Days Away from the City in Long-Gone Shore Homes

These days, if you told someone you were renting a shore home for the summer, they would probably assume you’re headed to Ocean City. But for ages—until hurricanes wiped out many of them—blue-collar families in Baltimore City owned or rented shore homes in Bowleys Quarters, Millers Island, Sue Creek, and other places feeding into the Chesapeake Bay.

Usually, these shore homes were really shacks with a few rooms, equipped with an outhouse, and if you were lucky, an indoor sink with running water. During the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, I spent time in shore shacks with family and friends. We’d go on weekends to fish and crab from piers, have cookouts, and enjoy the outdoors. We’d plant gardens, eat steamed crabs, play games, or go swimming. At night, we slept inside on beds, cots, or even bunk beds.

These types of shore homes are a faded memory, as folks realized it was lucrative to sell the property, especially when Hurricane Isabel destroyed many and families couldn’t afford to rebuild.

Even with the shore homes gone, the memories linger. Because, back in the day, there was no better place to be in the summer than at the shore.

A WELCOME SHORE
It’s actually quite hard to find recorded history of these shore homes. The Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River has the most comprehensive account of Millers Island. I also found a few mentions about Millers Island and Bowleys Quarters in old Baltimore Sun articles and community newspapers like The Avenue News and The Dundalk Eagle. Much of the rest of the history lives on in memories from local families.

Bowleys Quarters, a Middle River peninsula, is named for Daniel Bowley, a merchant and sea captain, who in the mid-1700s owned 2,000 acres in Baltimore. Historical accounts state that Bowleys Quarters was originally used to house the people that he enslaved. It eventually became a duck-hunting preserve—attracting everyone from baseball player Babe Ruth to U.S. presidents like Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Bowleys Quarters became a place to vacation, and, in the 1920s, the first shore homes were built for workers and executives of Bethlehem Steel, General Motors, and other plants.

Millers Island, located on a peninsula in southeastern Baltimore County, was originally farmland. By the mid-1900s, it was great fishing and crabbing grounds. An article in The Avenue News, by late editor Jackie Nickel, states that in the early 1900s, for people who “chose shore shack living, the rent was as low as $5 a week or $100 per year.” In 1922, Baltimore County established the Millers Island community of summer homes for executives from Bethlehem Steel. By the 1930s, people from Baltimore City flocked to the area to escape the heat and relax in inexpensive summer homes on the Bay.

Scott Huffines, archivist and board member of the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River, grew up in the shore shack his great-grandfather John “Hon” Nickel built.

“Over the years his family and many others decided to make their shore shacks their permanent homes. They added bathrooms, heating, and room additions, usually in such a uniquely haphazard, piecemeal fashion that the buildings still standing could now be considered livable ‘outsider art,’” he says.

“When I think of shore shacks, I think of family,” continues Huffines. “I still live on that property, and I entertain my family and friends just as my ancestors did in the early 1900s. The connection to water is like connection to family. Waterfront has always been paradise to me.”

MY FIRST TIME
The first time I remember going to a shore home was in 1979, the summer when I was 11, a year after my father had died. It was a reunion of sorts, with my old living-room furniture. My paternal grandmother had ordered furniture she didn’t like and gave the set to my mom. In turn, my mom gave our 1970s sofa and chairs, which sported the dark brown slipcovers of the era, to her friends Mel and Ginny Schenning.

The Schennings took them to their shore home. Mr. Mel and Miss Ginny, as we called them, rented the shore home for many summers. But I don’t remember exactly where it was. When you were a kid, you got in the car and ended up somewhere else. Unfortunately, all the people who  would know are long gone.

My closest friend was Sandy Jachelski Vieyra, and we spent our time at the Schennings’ shore home wading into the Bay. If a fish or eel swam by and touched your leg, all-out screaming and running from the water would ensue. We also tried to get a fancy silhouette photo of each other. At sunset, one of us would walk on the pier, and the other took a picture from the shore. We did this a lot, and while we had fun, the chances of our work ending up in a gallery were zilch, as we used my mom’s small 110 film camera.

We had great times, and we’d go home at night dirty, tired, and content.

LAZY SUMMER DAYS
My mom and Sandy’s mom, Miss Zennie, were best friends too. So, we were all invited down to Aunt Katie’s shore home on Millers Island during the early ’80s. (I have no idea what Aunt Katie’s last name was, and she wasn’t an actual aunt to any of us, but back then, that’s what we called certain adults in our lives.)

When I called Sandy recently to talk about those times, she reminded me that our moms bought us cheap, white tenners (now called sneakers) from Shocket’s on Eastern Avenue to wear in the Bay. While they were bright white when we went in, they eventually ended up tinged green from the water. But we didn’t care. In them, we waded out into the warm waters. The only time we got out—until it was time to go home—was either to eat or when it was too dark.

We hated using the outhouse. It was hot and smelly and dark—there was no lighting in them. Sometimes, spiders descended as you sat there, and the goal was to get out as soon as possible. Then Aunt Katie did something miraculous: She got an indoor bathroom installed! We were told to use it sparingly, but we’d go in whenever we had to. It was just too wonderful.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, my Aunt Terrie Brooks Cessna was renting a house on Sue Creek that had indoor plumbing. But her road still had more moderate shore homes, too. When she discovered one was for rent, she called my mom immediately. My mom and stepdad rented it for $750—May through October—for the summers of 1990 and ’91. During those two glorious summers, my mom and I spent time floating on the creek in blow-up rafts, fishing on our neighbor’s pier, and having serious talks I still cherish.

My memories of that shore home are still so vivid. I can close my eyes and hear the ducks, the water lapping on the tiny bit of sand we had, and the boats going by.

“When I think of shore shacks, I think of family. I still live on that property, and I entertain my family and friends just as my ancestors did in the early 1900s. The connection to water is like connection to family. Waterfront has always been paradise to me.”

STILL IN THE FAMILY
In the early ’80s, I went to a friend’s shore home in Bowleys Quarters. It belonged to Anna Marie Shinnick Komisarek’s mom and her siblings—members of the Hock family. Anna Marie’s grandparents, along with nine of their children and her grandmother’s brother, chipped in and purchased the one-floor-with-an-attic home in 1958. After their parents died, the siblings kept it, as a timeshare.

The Hocks had a calendar on a bulletin board at the home, and each family would mark off a week for their vacation. Anna Marie’s family went in August. When she invited a bunch of our friends and me for a hot summer day, I thought it was the coolest place ever. I wore a shimmery, rust-colored, one-piece bathing suit, and we spent the day in the water and on our towels on the lawn getting tan and listening to the radio. We sang loudly when a song played by this “new” band, The Police, came on.

By the early 2000s, Anna Marie’s mom’s generation was getting older and asked the younger cousins if they wanted to buy them out. They did, and now nine family members, including Anna Marie and her brother and sister, own a share of the shore.

Some things have changed though. They still keep a calendar, but now it’s on Google. The family created Bay Drive Shore, LLC, to prevent personal liability in case of any accident. “We run it like a family, though,” says Anna Marie. “Many of us were just starting out with young children, and if anyone had gotten sued, we would have nothing.”

It’s also no longer a one-floor home. After Hurricane Isabel destroyed the shore home I knew in 2003, the cousins rebuilt it. Now it’s two-floors with a basement and can sleep 19 people in beds—or 36, if they use a couch and blow-up mattresses.

From 1958 to 2003, the only damage at the shore was in 1972, when Hurricane Agnes knocked down a tree onto her uncle’s car, Anna Marie says. Since Isabel, though, climate change has caused lots of other issues, including more flooding, which is why even though the new shore home was built on the site of the old home, the basement is where the first floor would have been. (According to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, sea level along Maryland’s shores will “very likely rise a foot between 2000 and 2050.”) So, if the Bay were to flood the property, the chances it would damage the home are small.

Although the house has many modern amenities, there’s a lot that reminds you of the old days. Black-and-white photos line the hallways. On one wall, black letters spelling the family name, “Hock,” are surrounded by salvaged front panels of the original kitchen drawers, small dishes, photos, and a rolling pin. There’s also the once-white sign (now yellowed) with red letters that was house rule back in the day: No Wet Bathing Suits Allowed in the House.

“This is a sacred place to us,” says Anna Marie. I know exactly what she means.

COMING FULL CIRCLE
Another friend still has her family’s shore home as well. From 1954 until about 1973, Stacy Greensfelder DeCarlo’s paternal grandparents and her great-aunt and great-uncle owned a little piece of property on Millers Island. On it, they had three cinder-block buildings constructed: a house, a shed and outhouse, and one her grandmother called “The Crab House,” since her husband enjoyed crabbing.

Eventually, Stacy’s parents bought out her dad’s aunt and uncle’s share, and Stacy would often take friends down there on weekends to swim, fish, and have fun.

After Stacy’s dad passed away and Hurricane Isabel left the house underwater, Stacy and her husband, Bill, decided that they wanted to buy it.

“It was something I wanted to keep in my family, and my husband just loves boating and fishing, as well as being on the waterfront,” says Stacy.

They were able to rebuild on the original cinderblock foundations, and about a decade ago, they decided to add a second floor with two bedrooms to the main home, along with heating and central air, Wi-Fi, and anything else to make it livable year-round. Over the years, they’ve held tons of family events there as well.

In mid-July of 2022, my shore home experience came full circle. A horrible storm hit, and my Baltimore neighborhood lost power. Because it was so ungodly hot, and because neither we nor our dogs could stand the heat, we decided to get a hotel room. I posted on social media to see if anyone knew of hotels that were open (remember this was during COVID) that allowed pets. Stacy invited my husband, me, our dogs, and our close friend and neighbor, Ernie Keeton, and his dog to use the shore home.

During the days we stayed there, so many memories came flooding back. When I went out and sat on her pier, I realized that the pier further up her street—which had seen better days—was the old Worster’s Pier, where I had spent so much time fishing, crabbing, and having fun days with my mom. On the day that my mom had passed away 17 years earlier, I sat on Stacy’s pier and watched the sunset. I felt like my mom was once again with me.

Stacy’s shore home was about as close as I could get to the ones of my childhood. Yes, her modern amenities were nice, but nothing will top those simpler days of enjoying the Bay in our cheap sneakers, the outhouses, and having fun with all those friends and family on hot summer days so many years ago.