Episode One: Here and Then It's Gone

Thousands of people have passed through Cabin John, Maryland, without ever knowing it, on the way to somewhere else. It’s never been incorporated and there were few signs announcing it when I am growing up. Its main street is MacArthur Boulevard, formerly Conduit Road, named because it carries an elderly aqueduct into Washington, D.C. There is a weight limit for trucks, many of which ignore it. MacArthur Blvd. starts just west of Georgetown in the city. It sprouts from the foot of Foxhall Road and heads steadily west through several residential areas.

On the way, the boulevard glides past two reservoirs. I’m fascinated by the first, which is the size of a city block, with large rectangular pools. From the right angle they seem to fall off into Virginia across the river. There’s a dark squat castle that hides some controls. As a child I imagine they keep gorillas in there. The second reservoir is a beautiful, large lake that wouldn’t look amiss with sail boats skimming its surface.

When passing the first reservoir, there is a forbidding red stone building across the street. It is the former Florence Crittenden Home, where young women who’d gotten pregnant were sent here by their families to be out of sight and out of mind. Most families were ashamed and embarrassed by their daughters’ plight.

Florence Chrittenden home in Washington, D.C.

(The Washington Post)

The Florence Crittenden system was founded by Charles Nelson Crittenden in 1883 and named for his four-year-old daughter, Florence, who died of scarlet fever. His vision was to reform young women and girls—and eventually prostitutes—who were pregnant and unmarried. The first home was established in New York City. By 1897, there were 51 member homes across the country. The Washington location was opened in 1902. It is the most ominous of all.

A stay at Florence Crittenden’s home in Washington cost the family $1,000 for two months. Today, this amount would be $30,417.[1] The girls were admitted when they were in their seventh month of pregnancy. I imagine the dread they must have felt as they approached the heavy doors of this forbidding fortress. Once inside, they were brainwashed for the rest of their stay by ‘social workers’ in what the women called the ‘gargoyle’ part of the home. These women advised them that adoption was their only option. The girls dared not share their full names. They went by their first name and an initial so no one could identify them and further embarrass the family. [2]

When we drive in to see a movie at the MacArthur Theater, we often see a few of these unfortunate young women walking from the home a block away. They are a sad warning about how a girl’s life can take a bad turn, even at a young age. Women received the right to vote in 1920, yet this house of horrors was open for business until 1982.

I note there’s no home for unwed fathers.

On the west side of the second reservoir is the locally famous road service and auto repair shop, Bonfield’s. It has not changed much since 1927, when Charles Bonfield opened it. It still has the original air pump and outdoor repair pit. A gas pump wasn’t added until 1936. Wally Bonfield, Charles’ son, bought the property from his sister for $10 in 1940. Up until recently, the garage has continually operated for 70 years. I love driving past Bonfield’s to see what Wally has out front: inflated inner tubes to rent for play on the Potomac or at the beach, and silly signs: “KER-O-SENE,” “It’s Spring!!,” “Special Used Tires.” [3]

Wally Bonfield stands in front of his iconic auto repair shop.

Once past Bonfield’s, the street takes on the meandering twists and turns of a country road. The Potomac River is not far below. The driver will pass Glen Echo, home of my beloved Glen Echo Park, an amusement park that was once the height of thrills and chills.

A bit further on, the traveler arrives at the handsome Union Arch Bridge, built during the Civil War, and at one time the largest single span bridge in the world. In my youth the extremely narrow bridge has a lane of traffic going each way, leading to many crashes and heated disputes over the years. One morning, our drunken school bus driver gets into a pissing contest with a bus driver on the other side. Each man pushes forward and the buses become wedged in the middle of the bridge. One look out the window gives a devastating view straight down to the Cabin John Creek far below. We ultimately have to file out the back emergency exit and wait for another bus to take us to junior high school the long way around. Eventually, wiser heads prevail and put in a stoplight on each end, and reduce it to a single lane bridge.

On the other side of the bridge, the traveler will be in Cabin John. He will pass the humble houses in The Gardens to the left, originally built as “temporary” housing during the second world war for white employees of the nearby David Taylor Model Basin. Across town is the Carver Road development, where the Black employees of the model basin live. The Gardens property once held a magnificent hotel and amusement park that drew presidents out of the city to enjoy its offerings. It was called the Cabin John Bridge Hotel, owned by Joseph and Rosa Bobinger, German immigrants. In 1931, the uninsured hotel burned to the ground with all its contents. The only thing that remains is a small brick storage building on the other side of MacArthur Blvd.

MacArthur Blvd. lazily wanders through Cabin John, passing my house on the left, and leading eventually to Great Falls and the much tonier enclave of Potomac.

Like Brigadoon, Cabin John is there, and then it’s not.

[1] Ian Webster, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index [2] Diane Bernard, Maria Bogen-Oskwarek, The Washington Post, November 19, 2018. 7:00 a.m. [3] Library of Congress