Middletown Daily Photo: The Bluebird Lady

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Bluebird Lady

It is amazing what you can learn about a place when you get out of the car and walk around. During one of my recent photo-taking strolls in Middletown Park I saw this sign. I had no idea there was an organization dedicated to the Eastern Bluebird and I knew nothing about Betty Nichols.

This week I visited the website noted on the sign and learned that Middletown resident Betty Nichols was a member of this organization who established and maintained the trail of 10 nesting boxes in the park fifteen years ago. She died in 2003 and this year the Maryland Bluebird Society proposed that Frederick County honor her and her efforts by naming the trail for her.

The Frederick News Post and the Middletown Gazette ran stories about this a few weeks before the proposal was considered by the County. I assume from this sign the proposal passed.

1 comment:

Janet said...: What a good deed she did! Those bluebird boxes, placed in the right spots, really work.; November 13, 2008 at 7:17 AM

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About Middletown

Middletown, Maryland was founded in 1767 and is said to be named either for its position midway between South Mountain and the Catoctin Mountains or its central location between the larger Maryland cities of Frederick and Hagerstown. A few years earlier, a visiting surveyor and future “Father of our Country” George Washington referred to Middletown Valley as one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen.

The town was incorporated in 1833. After the Civil War battles of South Mountain and Antietam, Middletown churches served as hospitals for both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Today Middletown boasts a delicate balance of old and new. Instead of a Mayor, the town leader is a Burgess. Some of the buildings were built in the 1700s and 1800s. There are large Victorian homes as well as the typical cookie-cutter subdivisions that dot the edge of the Washington DC commuter exurbs.

The only franchise restaurant in town is a Subway; the only Starbucks is inside the Safeway.

If you really want to understand what small-town America feels like, visit Middletown during the Independence Day festivities and fireworks at Middletown Park, the Volunteer Fire Department’s annual mid-July Carnival or the Middletown Heritage Festival held in the fall.